GOP or Democrat, you have to win over the people. And to do that today, you have to promote guns and racism. You have to promise to shovel even MORE of the nation's wealth into the military so they can launch another massacre campaign and make the world more dangerous. You have to reassure the public that nothing will interfere with their consumerism and use of gas-guzzling vehicles. The parties merely respond to the will of the people. If the will of the people is brainless and self-destructive, the parties will cater to this mentality or they will lose elections. The GOP is a mirror of this sick society. Nothing more.
38
Consider the caravan of migrants, who are now Trump's favorite punching bag, to riotous applause from his fans.
Here are human beings in absolutely terrible, desperate and heartbreaking condition--hungry, thirsty, having committed no crime other than being born in the wrong place.
What is the Republican instinct? To demonize them. To brutalize them. To ensure no one will lift a finger to help them.
It's impossible to look at a Republican and not feel utter revulsion and contempt unless there is something seriously wrong with you.
62
Our instinct was not to try to reform the Nazis but to crush them--to end their poisonous reign before they caused any more suffering and destruction.
If we don't have the same mentality with respect to the vastly more dangerous Republicans, our entire planet is finished.
58
The price for burning down the Republican Party will be high.
We have seen this story before.
An economic recession/almost depression (1920) followed by
Almost a decade of growth (roaring 20’s) but with some sectors depressed (agriculture) and
During this decade US economic policy dominated by pro-business Republican administrations followed by
A deep worldwide depression in the first year of a new Republican President (1929) followed by
Three years of benign neglect/incompetent/destructive economic policies during which
The public begins to lose hope that the misery will ever end followed by
The burning down of the Republican Party (1932) and 30 years of Democratic rule.
That is if there is still a country left to rule.
6
The media, including The New York Time, made Mr. Trump. All this GOP bashing is pure hypocrisy. You guy anointed Mr. Trump. As Herman Cain aid, "blame yourself." Besides, the GOP have been snakes in the grass plotting to strike for years. Media has demonstrated complacency in the midst of what amounts to a coup to establish one party rule.
17
Trump has irreparably damaged the Republican brand. Actually, Trump effectively carved off a portion of the party, and the party leaders that were left decided to make a deal with the devil. They held their nose and supported his election so that they have a signing puppet in the White House. Now they're all in on remaining in power no matter the cost to democracy.
The true conservatives who aren't buying it should declare a new party and get on with it. It's time to have the ugly, public divorce from the Trump Party and start over.
28
The Republicans have been taking a bone saw to American Democracy for a long time, there are no principled Republicans left.
22
I strongly disagree that California's rent control initiative - Proposition 10 - is the result of "flabby thinking on the left." For an excellent explanation of the initiative, see the recent piece by Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-proposition-10-hou...
2
No mention about Republican indifference to Martian interference I wonder why? Could it be there was no interference from Martians? Maybe that's the explanation for the indifference to the Russian interference. If there was NO Russian interference, how can there be anything but indifference to it?
2
Nicholas Kristof is embarrassingly out of touch with America and epitomizes what is wrong with liberal Democratic politics. What's really been disappointing about our two years of Trumpism is the surprise with which people like Kristof express towards the Republican agenda. Wake up, folks! The Trump Republican party is no different from the Republican party. Racist and social policies? Check. Selective big (i.e. defense related) spending? Check. America first foreign policy? Check.
The problem is not with the Republicans, they've been extremely consistent for the past 50 years--it's with the Democrats. Democrats have been complacent and lazy, waiting for demographics to clean up their abandonment of the working class. They've relied on celebrity politics and leadership that represents more of what's wrong with the America (i.e. extreme wealth disparity) than what's right.
Now, as they try to win back the electorate based on their chosen values, they're scrambling because socially liberal values are not as cohesive as biblical ones.
13
Mr Kristof, it is the Democratic Party that has lost its way!
7
It is not just that the Republicans have lost their way. It is because the Republican have allowed our Government to be run by Religious sects.
The Republicans have conveniently forgotten that Separation of Church and State is a primary tenant of the Founding Fathers.
Hence the holding down of certain voter classes, gender bias, racial bias, economic bias, denial of Climate Change, the constant threat of eliminating the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Decimating of our Public School education and the continual effort to change Roe vs. Wade. In other words, taking away the right of a woman to choose. Next they will try to take white woman's right to vote. Minority women already live with that threat.
They have also allowed school children to be massacred without any conscience on their part.
I agree with the comparison of Menendez to the Christian Right who accept our philanderer, greedy and lying President. Both Menedez and the Right are corrupt and hypocritical. There is enough of that on both sides of the aisle. However, the Democrats are not trying to tear down this country. Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republicans have made no bones about their use of power for their own interests.
The only principle that the Republicans stand for is Power at any Price. They are ruining our Country, all because Obama had the temerity to run and win two times. The Republicans racism is unparalleled, as is their greed, as proven by the Tax Reform Bill.
17
The last "principled Republican" was Eisenhower.
19
Republicans aren't about good government. They are all about control. Absolute control of this country and absolute control of those who live here or want to live here.
To govern, Republicans need to give up control. They need to quit their fixation on power and keeping that power.
Abortion has nothing to do with good governance. It has everything to do with absolute control over women.
Guns have nothing to do with governance. Guns are all about getting votes.
What does gender identity have to do with governance? Yet, Republicans and conservatives want government to control anyone who is different from them.
Fear is not a governance issue either unless you are a Republican desperate for votes.
I doubt Republicans can or will reinvent themselves. Their vision doesn't go beyond the tip of their nose.
18
The principles in which the Democratic and Republican parties were founded are now meaningless, essentially 180 degrees from the original intentions. The Republicans, no longer the party of Lincoln, wish the South had not lost the rebellion. The Democrats, far from being a counterpoise to Madisonian federal outreach, are now for federal programs to change society.
The point is, old labels are meaningless.
The only relevant distinction now is, which party is the haven of the lying kleptocracy? Which party does not really believe now in representative government?
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
4
I question the statement that there are still principled Republicans within the Party. To remain a Republican under Trump and this Congress, one has to accept racism, white nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia as acceptable policy. I will never go back to a Party that embraces, is willfully blind to, or is complicit in such anti-Democratic policies.
32
Principles and republican? No such thing, non existent. At least not in the sense of good, decent, honest, moral, humane etc etc etc. They are the moral equivalent of Trump. Just wait though as soon as dems push them aside they will pretend to be the pinnacle of principles.
14
I remember seeing David Brooks talking on a Friday night on PBS NewsHour about how the Republican Party was essentially destroyed.
That was a few weeks before Donald Trump won the election.
10
The GOP is not a political party. It is the lobbying arm of a coalition that includes ultra-rich, corporations, big finance, plutocrats and oligarchs, religious fanatics, white nationalists among others, masqueraded as a political party.
The GOP could not care less about Americans, unless they belong to that rarified group and contribute money. Their only agenda is to stay in power, at whatever cost, and serve the interests of their masters by securing the appropriation of money and resources that once were shared by the society to those masters.
For what the GOP cares, Americans can live in poverty and sickness, with job and food insecurity and remain uneducated. In fact, the more uneducated the better, since in this way they can more easily be manipulated and convinced to vote against their own interests.
39
I considered myself a Republican and a Conservative for years, but no longer. I was a sucker. I believed the GOP when they claimed to be for fiscal restraint, when they said that character mattered, when they said they believed in individual freedom AND responsibility. They have shown over and over that these were lies and now that they’ve been unmasked, they gleefully plow ahead.
They stand silent when the President expresses great affection for the N Korean leader who leads the country at the top of almost every list of Christian persecution hotspots while they proclaim to be the keepers of Christian liberty. They stand by while Trump praises despots and they seem unfazed by a legal American resident with US citizen children being murdered and apparently dismantled in the embassy of an “ally” while they claim to be for law & order.
They’ve been planning for a feudal society for years and they are salivating with joy as they watch it come to fruition. They have no vision for a great society but only for a dogfight that they can watch from their high castles and laugh.
45
The GOP’s significant advantage is mostly among whites without a college degree and next white men, overall. Trump and the GOP routinely bash latinos and are curtailing latino and brown immigration, but 26 percent of latinos still support them, The democrats need to tailor their message and policies better to all these folks.
6
Providing a neocon like Max Boot as an example of a conservative Republican is far fetched.
The globalist neocons always belonged in the Democratic party. He is back where he belongs.... Thank you and all the other war hawk neocons for leaving...Please don't stir up trouble and lead us to war with them like you did with us..
I suppose the rational to kill others will be for human and woman's rights now....Those neocons always have some excuse for others to die for their causes.
2
You live in an alternative universe, Mr. Kristof.
The party that has lost its way are the Democrats. They are losing everywhere, they are engaging in bizarre tactics (SCOTUS nomination process, DNA testing of candidates), and in case you are in doubt you will be shown in November.
Republicans have never been stronger despite a few, a tiny handful, of "conservative" crybabies, basically psychiatric cases, who would rather lose than "compromise" their precious "principles". Oh yeah, they stand shoulder to shoulder with Burke. Who? 1760? Never mind.
And you think Republicans have to change? That's rich.
3
@John Xavier III
You couldn't have fell inline better:
"And you think Republicans have to change? That's rich."
Yes, most Republican will never be "rich" but they'll carry the water for the rich like slaves.
20
Traditional republicans will have to change their name and leave the GOP to the Trumpists. Then you're happy, and the rest of us can go about working for control of the government around you.
1
Desperately Seeking Principled Republicans ?
How about seeking Democrats with any sense of morality.....after the their attempt to destroy a decent man like Kavanaugh in their quest for power.
4
I find it hard to believe the "MOB" heading for the US isn't funded by Republican dirt tricksters, the time is just too good and its so core to current Republican talking points.
8
I am also looking for principled Republicans, Nicholas. I’ve found a few at the local level, specifically our county clerk and auditor. But they avoid talking about national issues, keep their heads down and do their jobs.
I do wonder what they think of the state of the national Republican Party, which has become one that takes away individuals’ rights such as the right to be transgender, and gives rights to businesses and corporations, such as the ability to suffer no consequences for polluting and for indiscriminately harvesting and mining federal lands.
I hope they can sleep at night, perhaps justifying their affiliation by thinking of the incredibly hot economy right now and thus everyone has a chance at a job. Man does not live by jobs alone, however.
6
Oh come now, they have their principles -- the promotion of oligarchy, militarism and christian nationalism. They lie about it all the time of course, but it's been clear for decades those are their principles. Trump just adds a bullying crust to what is the same old gop.
12
Mr. Kristof should recognize the ironclad and time tested proposition that Republicans are under no illusions. Each and every one believes their party is answering the call of history. To a man they reject criticism. To Republicans it is self criticism that is the existential threat to this country.
There is no GOP self examination underway. The closest they came to that experience was when Flake, Corker and McCain raised some quickly faded hope of rectitude and principle. As of this date they have devolved into a political party of transactional, guiltless, chronic liars. Nothing matters but their party.
Case in point. Kashoogi is dead. Murdered. Prince bin Salman bears responsibility. Not one GOP politico has uttered the word "murdered" and they won't. Saudi Arabia is a transactional partner and therefor above reproach. Not one will ever be accused of calling the Ace of Spades a spade.
7
I am tired of hearing that John McCain was a "principled Republican". Consider that on the radio, Senator McCain thought Hillary Clinton would win the presidency and vowed not to let her put a single justice on the Supreme Court through her entire four-year term. The following is from NPR's website:
"Speaking on WPHT-AM radio's "Dom Giordano Program" in Philadelphia, McCain pledged to obstruct any Clinton Supreme Court nomination for the current or any future vacancy.
'I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up,' he declared."
John McCain's words speak for themselves. No "principle" was involved.
9
And let’s not forget how he ridiculed a teenaged Chelsea Clinton for the way she looked in front of an entire nation for some good ol’ boy yucks.
Yeah- a real paragon of principles.
7
Worried that we don't have principles conservatives? You're worry about the wrong thing, Nicholas.
What you should be worried about is helping the progressives, any way you can. You criticize progressives; Republicans certainly don't criticize themselves. There is nothing left of the old Republican Party. And wishing it back into existence will not work. What they are now is a scary bunch of ultra-nationalists looking for a religious world war.
Vote them out of office. It really is the only way.
3
Keep looking, you might find ONE. There hasn't been one sighted in these parts for years!
3
The Republicans are in power because enough Americans voted in local, state and national elections to put them there. They have worked for decades to cement voter loyalty in place, using racism, misogyny and abortion as critical pillars of support. And now that they have achieved this stranglehold on government across the board they will not relinquish it easily. They have the power and the biggest megaphone as a result.
It is a mistake to say that this power bloc has lost its way. It has arrived at its target destination. This journey started in our lifetime with the establishment of the Southern strategy following the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s. It morphed into the anti-government doctrine of the Reagan administration. And it has reached maturity in the Trump era, when uninhibited expression of hatred of others is the satisfaction meted out to the masses while the truly powerful consolidate wealth and control.
Our current problem is that many of the powerless see themselves as members of the powerful tribe. They mistakenly believe that the powerful deserve admiration for their self-made success. They assume that the powerful members of their tribe care about them and will clear their path to powerful status. Not a safe bet.
Fortunately the powerless have a superpower in our society. It is the vote. Be very clear about which candidates will represent OUR interests as a society the best, and for gods sake get out and VOTE for them.
7
The Legislative Branch has a constitutional duty to serve as a check on abuses of power by the Executive. Abuses of power are not relative according to who controls Congress and the White House. Abuses of power are not political; they are clear and definite acts of corruption, acts of criminality, unethical acts, threats to national security, and/or unconstitutional acts. I agree, the process of impeachment is political, deciding on what constitutes High Crimes and Misdemeanors, but the acts themselves are not. Abuses of power must be investigated through congressional hearings before any political decisions can be made. The GOP-led Congress refuses.
Some in Congress subvert their constitutional responsibilities by protecting a corrupt president. These members of Congress are themselves corrupt. Those who vote for these members of Congress are facilitating corruption.
Voters can use all kinds of excuses and justifications for re-electing corrupt politicians. Perhaps it satiates revenge, hate, fear, misconceptions (all negative emotions and fantastical beliefs) but the bottom line is rejection of American, democratic, and human values.
3
Ironic that it's actually the Democrats who have completely lost it.
Trumpism is unlikely to outlast Trump, while the hard-left Antifa-style, "I am Spartacus", abolish-ICE extremism will live on.
5
Were the Kavanaugh hearings an example of principled behavior?
3
Republicans do stand for things larger than themselves. First and foremost, they stand for corporations and billionaire donors, with whom they made a Faustian bargain: Give up their principles, conscience, humanity, and patriotism in exchange for limitless campaign contributions that will ensure their majority power. They stand for the vision of the Kochs, Scaifes, Mercers, Adelsons, and other funders of the Federalist Society: An unregulated zero-sum plunder capitalism of extreme inequality, that redistributes the nation's wealth to them and leaves everyone else with varying degrees of poverty.
Republicans also stand for imposing the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity on everyone, as part of another bargain they've made with wealthy Evangelical leaders: In exchange for legislating their beliefs and giving them control over people's lives they have long sought, they will deliver flocks of Republican voters who care only about restricting the rights of women, putting LGBT people back in the closet, and restoring the "Christian nation intended by the country's founders." Similarly, Republicans stand for division, hatred, bigotry, and (above all) lies: The tools they have used so successfully to convince millions of chickens to vote consistently and enthusiastically for Colonel Sanders.
While it's not as easy to articulate what Democrats stand for, one thing is clear: If you don't agree with what Republicans stand for, you MUST vote against them next month.
17
I've kicked around two models to explain humans.
First one is a yeast model:
Place yeast in a wine bottle, a closed system like Earth, added water and sugars (natural resources), the yeast consumes the sugar fueling a reproductive explosion. Eventually, the geometrically growing population's alcohol production (pollution) kills them. Simple, predictable and highly reproducible.
Second is a pathogenic virus model:
Viruses invade a host organism, another closed system, and kill cells (resources) for their reproductive needs. An overly pathogenic virus kills the organism when it exceeds the organism's recovery capacity for cellular death. Viruses have a capacity for mutating to a less predatory state before they destroy all potential host organisms. Complex, evolving and highly chaotic.
Viewing political parties under these models:
Today's Republicans, I see a need to be history based and following historical practices, a religious belief in the unlimited faith in the Earth's capacity to absorb human impact like the release of CO2 from burning fossil fuels or returning to an unregulated discharge of pollutants into waterways.
Whereas Democrats, recognizing the existential threat to humankind and are motivated to mutate or evolve our past practices for the greater good of future generations.
Vote Democrat for the continuation of life on Earth.
13
@Stephan ................ excellent!
Except , please, it's Vote Democratic or Vote for Democrats.
One is following the the Limbaugh Hannity attack language when one uses the noun form (always intended as a slur by them . . . they love to say "the Democrat Party") when the adjectival is called for.
1
If a person has principles he wouldn’t be a republican.
Oh, I know there are republicans that think they have principle, just like Miss Piggy thinks she’s as attractive as Jessica Rabbit. They delude themselves: fear and anger are not principles.
21
I'm seeking, desperately, principled politicians. The country should be clamoring for them. Every politician running for office should be running chiefly on her or his principles. Forget about health care. Forget about immigration. Forget about a free press. Forget about the Supreme Court. We desperately need serious and searching debate about whether the US should be guided by principles -- and, if so, which principles it should be guided by. The question is this: What will be the US be like, as a place to live? How rude to each other will we be? How able to talk to each other will we be? Will we respect each other? How curious will we be about where each other is coming from? How caring will we be? Why is "greatness" so important (to us), and what do we mean by it? Do we mean "rich"? Is that the whole ball game? Is that we want to value, chiefly -- above, say, relatively more abstract things, like fairness, equality, honesty, integrity, truth, kindness? Politicians who hold back from making their answers to such questions central to their basic sales pitch -- basic to why they should represent any of us -- are selling this country out. And, just to be crystal clear, I mean politicians of any party or stripe.
1
So what are you proposing Nickolas? More of the same democrat neoliberalism of Clinton's/Obama? More corruption of the democrat party in the mid terms and your paper anointing Hillary Clinton ignoring Bernie Sanders and others . Of course, Bernie got such big crowds you couldn't ignore anymore so the paper insulted. Party elites like Schumer and Pelosi are corporate lapdogs.
I have always thought there was more to you than that.
1
Republican supporters in this discussion claim that Democrats have been reduced to nasty name calling, citing KKK, Hitler, Koch fascists, etc.. and that they will never win an election with this kind of approach.
My single, gerrymandered, CitizensUnited diminished, pathetic little vote is a vote against Trump values... the very same values Republicans embrace.
There, how does that sound? Is that something a Republican can wrap their head around.
16
Menendez is the best you can come up with for your scheduled false equivalence? The definition of what republicans did in the basement of that steak house in D.C. on Obama's Inauguration Day is Sedition. If not Treason.
They pledged no quarter towards anything Obama was going to do; including what Obama was going to do to help America dig out of the swamp that republicans had driven us into. They turned their backs on Americans and wholeheartedly embraced factionalism to help the koch bothers achieve their fascist dream state.
Now they promote racism as a counter to the Democratic ideals We the People have counted on since our founding.
"As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." George Washington
Vote Democrat this year. Your life and the lives of your children depend on it.
32
Please remember that this all started with goldwater and his embrace by the publican party. It progressively got worse and now there is no decent publican left. boot, will and their ilk are just plain frauds. The publicans have been racist, deficit frauds for decades. Their aim has been to provide tax cuts and deregulation for the rich and screw the poor and middle class. boot, will, drum are just plain frauds.
3
The person occupying the WH is Rotten to the Core! The GOP is Rotten to the Core! They are a huge part of the Russian cover-up!
4
First, they need to rid themselves of Tiny.
Then the future Minority leader and his psychophants. That may give them them a very slight window of opportunity.
3
"Cities and states run by a single party slide toward poor governance, and conservatives are essential to push back at flabby thinking on the left — like California’s Proposition 10..."
Sorry, Mr. Kristof, using California to show how a state run by one party is sliding toward "poor governance" isn't really going to make your point. "Flabby thinking" in California comes from the Nunes crowd and their minions, as you would know if you actually knew what California's policies are.
And another problem with the column is that "the principled version of the Republican Party in Congress has virtually collapsed, a crisis compounded by the death of Senator John McCain."
McCain was never principled. Do you recall his saying, before the 2016 election, that Obama should not have the ability to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court. Perhaps even worse, he said that if Clinton won, he did not think that she should have the same right. He wanted to retain just 8 members on the court so that the liberal justices would not have a majority. That's principled???
10
I agree....Much better examples. The Calf prop on restricting movement is a token example of clever Democrat attempts to protect the middle class and segregate the rest, but it goes much deeper than that.
Just look at our segragated urban areas with poor schools, crime, police violence, poverty, people trapped in neighborhoods or forced to move when the rich people come, that's what one party Democrat Rule looks like. ...Not hard to see....Look around my urban friends!
Divide and conquer has been the urban Democrats political strategy for decades....They are really good at it too.... Just look at the results!
There once was a party of Lincoln
Who decided it didn’t need thinkin’
They bleached themselves white
And left the real right
In 2018 they’ll be sinkin’.
12
Conservatives, renew your vows, and take back your good name that once stood for informed deliberation on serious matters of intelligent governance of our democracy. Back when you didn’t cozy up to dictators and crazed royalty, back when you weren’t bought and paid for by the NRA, Koch’s, Big Pharma, arms merchants, and private health insurers; back when lobbyists didn’t dictate how you vote.
But that was in another country long ago and far, far, away from the mess you have wrought.
8
Principled Republicans go by Democrats.
7
I just want to run the clock now and hope I check out before the country turns neo-fascist and it’s too late to do anything about it. Please read Madeleine Albright’s book, Fascism. The correlation between what Republicans are doing now and what the Germans did in the 20s and 30s is frightening.
16
Let's see how evangelical Republicans, including Pence, react to the dilemma facing USA: the Saudi prince our "friend" ordered Khashoggi murdered and returned to Saudi Arabia (even if his body had to be dismembered) but wecannot threaten the "friendship" given how much business and money are at stake (not only in oil, but in the arms business. That is blood money. So do evangelicals have double morals?
9
"Unfortunately, the principled version of the Republican Party in Congress has virtually collapsed, a crisis compounded by the death of Senator John McCain." The Republican Party collapsed long before John McCain died!
10
I didn't need to read this article to know that Republicans in Congress have taken hypocrisy to a new level, hypocrisy to the Nth degree. The latest example was the Kavanaugh hearings. Without exception, Republicans including Susan Collins had called for Al Franken to resign amid allegations of sexual misbehavior. He was essentially drummed out of the Senate without the benefit of a hearing or investigation. On the other hand, Kavanaugh who was obviously a drunken sexual abuser during his high school and college years was given the benefit of the doubt without a thorough investigation and after the testimony of a more than credible witness. Not only that, any open-minded observer could tell he lied to Congress repeatedly. Republican Congressmen and women are traitors, not to America at war but to democracy, the rule of law, and to the basic predisposition of decency in all of us.
11
Accurately put. Thank you!
My own thoughts on the decline of GOP seems to point to a buyout of the party by rogue capitalists who lobby for laws that benefit them, pack courts to favor them and exploit the environment and employees for their greed. Gives a bad name to genuine capitalism. It just goes to show how any 'ism' can be corrupted and you only need a few rotten apples, pardon the pun!
I am really encouraged that there are true conservatives who see the hollowness of today's GOP. Thank you again!
2
There are no principled republicans. There were some, but they left the party. The remainder are soulless hypocrites with no moral compass, intent on selling out the country for their own short term interest. It is obvious that no low is too low for them to embrace and defend.
12
I am convinced that we have poor candidates and the resulting poor governance because we only care to see the lies and hypocrisy of the opposing party. We should turn our attention to the problems in our own parties, if we have enough principle and objectivity to do that. Instead, we will churn on indefinitely as we await the other party to reform itself to our satisfaction. Both sides are corrupt. Both lie, both chase money from powerful interests, and both do everything they can to perpetuate themselves. Nothing will come from demanding the other guy to change first.
3
We are long past seeking principled Republicans. What we need are more principled Democrats.
As disturbing and despicable as the Russian interference in our elections is it pales in comparison to the vile efforts the Republicans have made to disenfranchise their fellow Americans.
Our democracy is still saddled with the Karl Rove-lead redistricting that occurred after the 2010 census that gave Republicans many more seats than they had. Gerrymandering in North Carolina, for example, resulted in 53% of the popular vote leading to 10 of 13 seats; that’s 77% of the seats. But much worse is the more personal and insidious ways they are employing to steal even more seats by keeping minority voters from the polls. Some examples: requiring Native Americans who do not use street addresses to have residential addresses on their voter IDs. This was implemented in October, just weeks before the election. This is intended to take votes away from Senator Heidi Heitkamp. And in Georgia, we have the Republican candidate for governor, still in his secretary of state job, purging voter rolls and holding back registrations in a manner that impacts mostly blacks in an effort to keep votes from his black opponent, Stacey Abrams. And in Texas, they are trying to keep a black colleges students from voting to steal votes from Beto O’Rourke.
We must overwhelm these efforts by having massive voter turnout in the mid-term elections.
Vote on November 6
4
Demolition of today’s version of the GOP is inevitable. Once people learned that smoking killed, smokers began to quit as fast as they could and non-smokers never started. Those who still smoke are stigmatized socially.
So it will be with the Trump cult. As the smarter among them realize how they are being used and leave the GOP, they will be followed and those who remain as registered Republicans or proclaim their support for Trumpism, they will be stigmatized. And non-Republicans will avoid the GOP as the political plague that it is.
The Republican Party deserves many years in the political wilderness for their disgraceful fling with Trump and it is coming
9
The riveting photo accompanying this piece was a perfect visual metaphor for the present Trump Republican Party: an homogeneous collection of largely old, balding, plotting white guys emerging from the secret shadows of governance to further spring their destructive political havoc upon an American public. Led by its manipulative, smug, nihilistic leader McConnell, Round Two of its “dream objective” has already been articulated, more tax cuts for its corporate and plutocratic donors, and a concerted effort to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
13
This party is too far gone. Get rid of all of these crooks and make sure none of them get a pension or benefits. That's our money. They have spent enough of it.
And across the board, politicians need be paid like the rest of us. They should get the lowest wage there is, same benefits, if any, no pay after they leave. If they have to live like us, they might be more inclined to care about us. Actually, most of these guys should be removed from society for treason. They should not cost us another penny.
Religion should NEVER be a factor, and if they accept money from corporations, they are put in prison, a day for each dollar they accept. All branches of office should have an equal number of people from each party, always. And if parties start coming up with new parties that are branches of the main one, they one get one person to represent the whole.
This should be the way American politics are run.
10
There is an old saying, Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.
4
'George Will, one of the best-known conservative thinkers in America, is no fan of Democrats but bluntly urged readers: “Vote against the G.O.P. this November.”'
Not right! One must vote FOR Democrats, not just "against the G.O.P". Voting FOR is the only real alternative. We all know how voting for a third party candidate turns out (e.g. 2000, 2016).
8
There are no principled Republicans and looking for them is a waste of time. Republicans are united in their chants of "Lock her up!" and "the lying press." Democrats are divided into those who want to work together to fix America and those like me who, profoundly pessimistic, believe we will have to settle for harassing public officials in restaurants. The good news is eventually things will get bad enough that more direct action will become necessary. I will donate my entire savings to the first Democrat who bodyslams a Fox News reporter.
4
Donald's appeal is anti-intellectual. "We love the poorly educated." So the principled musings of Max Boot and George Will are unlikely to move the base.
What might move the base is clear and convincing evidence of Donald Trump's venality and corruption.
But here we sit, in silent anticipation, while politeness in politics (!) prevents the FBI from bringing any charges before an election.
Voters have a right to know what Mueller knows. We don't need the complete catalog. Let's go with what we know now before the election.
3
The saddest thing about the current crop of Republicans is their abdication of their responsibility as a co-equal branch of government. They have ceded their job to simply rubber stamp the lunacy of an inept president in exchange for two justices for the SCOTUS, a mammoth and destabilizing tax cut, removing regulations which had hobbled polluters and the very real prospect of reversal of Roe v. Wade to slake the thirst of evangelicals for domination over women's bodies.
This is not a rational policy for governance. It is a plan for taking the wealth and soul of the nation without end.
15
The Republican Party stopped being the party of fiscal responsibility with Reagan and trickle-down economics.
Deficits went up under Reagan and W Bush.
Deficits went down under Clinton and Obama.
And Clinton had almost 50% better job creation than Reagan.
And Obama had almost 400% better job creation than W Bush.
And that was after W Bush took the balanced budget Clinton gave him and handed Obama a whopping $1.4 Trillion deficit.
And the worst recession since the Great Depression.
In addition, with Obama, 20 Million got healthcare.
With this latest Republican tax plan, the Republican Party did it a third time.
Every Republican senator voted for it.
This included McCain.
And every Democratic senator voted against it.
How do Republicans get away with it?
16
No sooner had Heidi Heitkamp won her North Dakota Senate race then the GOP began a fierce campaign to suppress the Democratic vote going forward. The press should drop the Pocahontas story and focus on this craven, immoral and ruthless assault on the voting rights of the first Americans who live on vast reservations in North Dakota which do not have any kind of street grid or street addresses. The US Postal Service does not even deliver their mail to their houses. This was never a problem before, not even in the primary elections earlier this year. For all official matters they used their PO Box addresses. Once again SCOTUS has sided with the conspiracy theorists who continue to falsely claim that voter fraud is a big problem in this country, despite the implosion of the commission that Trump set up to root it out which collapsed due to a lack of any proof of any such widespread voter fraud. Suddenly ten thousand Native Americans are being told to devise and prove a street address and get an ID with that address on it or else they cannot vote in two weeks.
While their leader mocks and taunts a female Senator for her family history of a long ago single Native American ancestor, as if acknowledging that such ancestry is sacred and important in the history of our country and should not be trivialized or used to personal advantage, the GOP’s lust for power somehow justifies in their minds the trampling of the voting rights of thousands of these very same sacred people.
8
Any political party with deep roots in any religion (incl. state sponsored atheism) is a relic of the past that should be allowed to die out. As far as our US of A is concerned, we desperately need new ideas and new political parties. Otherwise, we will follow the path of empires such as the Romans’ or the Soviets’.
1
"But what does the [Republican] party stand for today?"
a) Pushing back effectively against Russian and Chinese hegemonic ambitions in their respective spheres of influence
b) Pushing back effectively against Iranian hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East, and against its financial support of terror - particularly with respect to our ally Israel
c) Putting Constitutionalist judges on the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, as a bulwark against prevailing tendencies to "interpret" the Constitution in a way which supports particular political views
d) Securing the borders - not to enforce the party's supposed bigotry - but to enforce the law and reinstate the sovereign right of the United States to determine its own immigration policies
e) Reinstating the fundamental principle of free speech on college campuses and elsewhere, and of due process everywhere
f) Reinstating the right of citizens to choose their own doctor and hospital
g) Calling out threatening behavior of crowds, such as the nation saw recently in Portland
h) Pushing back against statements like Hillary's recent comment to the effect that civility should return to politics only after Democrats start winning again
i) Continuing to support business where reasonably possible so as to maintain a healthy job market
i) Etc., etc., etc.
I am waiting for someone, anyone, to confront the weaknesses of our form of government. Federalism is no longer appropriate in the 21st Century for us: Congressional self-determined rules of order used to secure egregious partisan actions; state governments acting solely for their own benefit which ignore consensus on problems that affect the entire nation; partisan ego and economic reward furthers cultural division, criminal/judicial absurdities, racism, and economic extremes; political leadership is defined by irrelevant media coverage (not fake news, just unsupported, though well financed mass media, including influence from foreign nations); and partisan spin allows incompetent, "talking head" personalities to hold political office.
Until law and election formalities are EXACTLY THE SAME in all 50 states, this nation will be lead by aggressive minority segments (i.e. money, religion, corporations) rather than the original premise that democracy can be led by the majority with due respect and protection for the minority.
2
Aside from Trump, who has no real political philosophy other than self-aggrandizement, Mitch McConnell is Ground Zero for Republican corruption and cynicism. What he did to the Supreme Court was unconscionable. What he did to the economy with his tax rollback for wealthy people—in broad daylight—was a prime example of how safe it is for a legislator to ignore his constituents and take care of his source of real power: money!
Money is the one and only, immutable Republican principle under which the party operates. They have constructed a full-blown plutocracy. Anything else they put forward to explain their actions is a lie.
Eisenhower, Javits, Brooke, Taft, Rockefeller, Percy, Kuchel, and dozens of others with principled politics are as far gone in time as McConnell's GOP is in the present.
5
This column gives us many examples of how the Republican Party has thrown away its principles. They have also shed any self-respect, but that is clearly less important than standing up to the President. Votes are votes, after all.
But Mr. Kristof throws in the obligatory, knee-jerk line: “Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the party...” But Mr. Kristof gives no examples of any actions that fit this bill. The last stand-up moment was John McCain on health care. The GOP voted virtually unanimously for Kavanaugh when it was clear his dishonesty under oath, his open threat to retaliate judicially, and his lack of temperament should have disqualified him. Even the lone GOP Senator, Murkowski, eventually changed her vote so as not to offend anyone.
If you’re going to say that there are principled GOP members, how about some examples since Trump took office? I’m not demanding any profiles in courage. I’m open to hearing anything.
2
There has been very little principle among Republicans for decades. It has reached new heights of depravity under Trump but it certainly didn't start with him.
They love Trump because they ( the GOP) no longer feel they have to hide their amorality or worry about public shame.
They no longer bother to hide their actual hate for democracy and openly embrace voter suppression and gerrymandering to rig elections- and of course, there is the ever popular dark money enabled by Citizens United.
True democracy is the antithesis of what the GOP really wants. Power and greed are the ruling motivations regardless of how many flag lapel pins they wear- and this didn't just happen the day Trump got elected.
7
The Greedy Old Party has consistently delivered tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations who in turn line their campaigns with cash. They are a one note party. It is a symbiotic relationship they have with the 1%. We all want reform but that will only come if we overturn Citizens United and utilize publicly financed campaigns. I'm not holding my breath.
4
Well observed, well reasoned, well said, Sir!
1
I left Republican party a long time ago. I voted Republican, yes for Nixon then Ford and finally Reagan. I was always sceptical of the tax cuts and increased revenues would pay for the cuts. After the first big tax cuts the deficit soared. Then it was starve the beast. The logic is to drive the United States into bankruptcy, while making the rich richer so you could cut spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs. Destroy America to make it better. The absolute sinacism of it made me a Dem.
10
Your premise starts with a false statement, that Trump supporters and Trump himself have embraced White Nationalism. This is an over the top claim based on Charlottesville’s comment and his hard stance on immigration. On Charlottesville, the statement should have been stronger, but that does not mean he embraces or supports White Nationalism. There is no policy he has implemented or suggested that does, and meanwhile the economic boom is helping all, particularly minorities. On illegal immigration he is just right, and the children are being used by illegals to cross into our country and stay, You, the left, are letting our country’s good nature be used to our detriment. Which brings me to my point, both traditional parties have sold our country down the road, allowing unchecked illegal immigration and unfair trade agreements to gut our economy and destroy the middle class. Everyone sees this, and no elitist rhetoric from you or David Brooks, or George Will can cover that up. Trump is the remaking of the GOP. And what does it stand for? Economic prosperity, opportunities for all and putting our country, yes, America First. And what does the Democratic Party stand for? Identity politics, division, globalism and socialism. The Democratic Party is the one that needs to be destroyed and rebuilt in the vision that existed with John F Kennedy. Go to his library and see if you think he would fit into today’s Democratic Party. I think not.
Desperately seeking principled Democrats, too! Here in New Jersey, Democratic leaders rushed to endorse Sen. Robert Menendez for re-election within minutes of Federal prosecutors' decision not to pursue their case against him. The U.S. Senate, at least, "severely admonished" Menendez. Democratic voters in New Jersey seem poised to give Menendez another six-year term. Is there no one in this state of 9 million people who could honorably serve in the U.S. Senate? Democratic voters apparently feel that any Democrat, even a corrupt one, is better than any Republican. I understand their hard-headed political calculation, but electing a man who has been accused of accepting gifts valued at between $750,000 and $1 million and in turn doing political favors for his benefactor, damages the Democrats' credibility when they oppose the corruption in the Trump administration and in what we euphemistically call our "campaign finance" system--which we ought to call by its real name: legalized bribery.
4
Really, if a party that has lost it's way is the subject, the Democrats should be the focus, not the Republicans.
Did he say “a progressive like me”? We seem to have lost our sense of the definitions of the major political platforms that our parties squabble over. For the benefit of Mr. Kristof I would like to list the definitions of these positions of the left (in my opinion) and let Mr. Kristof re-evaluate his politics:
Progressive: Want a minimum wage of $15/hr, a strong social security system, Medicare for All, and free tuition at public colleges. The minimum wage would be paid for by a boosted economy and tax revenues, SS would be made whole by raising the earned wage cap, Medicare would be paid for through cost savings, and free tuition would increase entrepreneurial activity and expand the economy.
Liberal: Add progressive income taxes with a top rate of 90% for the rich, no income taxes at all from those who make 3x the poverty rate or lower, reinstitute Glass Steagall Act, and tax capital gains the same as income. It’s obvious how all of these will be paid for.
The Real Left: Add Break up the too big to fail banks and jail the CEO’s who wreaked the economy, repeal Taft Hartley, rewrite corporate charters and put workers on the board. These are justice issues which will cost the economy nothing.
The Extreme Left: Add Nationalize the Wall Street banks, democratize corporate structure and take power away from stockholders, restructure districting for Federal elections to make them fair, and put term limits on all Congressional seats.
Mr. Kristof: where do you see yourself fit?
5
Replying to Ralphie - here are a few things liberals stand for:
Addressing climate change, the greatest threat to human society on this planet
Clean air and clean water for all Americans
A fair tax code in which everyone pays his or her share, including the wealthiest individuals and corporations
Universal and equal access to health care
Universal and equal access to voting
Equality and respect for Americans of all races and genders
Sure, some Democrats have resorted to name-calling, because the open bigotry, erasure of civil rights protections, attack on the environment and general rollback of modernity displayed by the current GOP frightens and angers us, with good reason.
But the idea that the Republicans now running the government are somehow well-meaning toward all Americans, and that they have the best interests of average working-class people at heart, is laughable. The record (trillion dollar tax cut for the rich! Pretend climate change is a hoax!) refutes that idea, as does the fact that Republicans now have to continually lie about their own policies (we’re not threatening Social Security and Medicare, it’s the Democrats!) to get votes.
Want to make this about policy? Liberals would welcome that, because a majority of Americans agree with our policy positions. Scare tactics built around racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia, voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering are not policy arguments.
11
Extreme partisanship is bad for the country. The division is dangerous and I don’t see how we can get out of it.
1
For years, the Republican Party has made the “liberal elite” the boogeyman.
The Republican voters are mad at the liberal elite like me.
I learned I was the liberal elite in the Bush election of 2000.
I grew up in a blue collar family, first generation in my family to go to college.
I started working at ten years old, got a job paying taxes at 15 (you could do that back then) and have been working and paying taxes ever since.
I worked my way through high school and college, going to a state university in math and computers which I paid for myself. Saved my money and got a masters in engineering which I paid for myself.
But Bush was the regular guy even though he is third generation multi-millionaire, whose family paid for him to go to Yale and then to Harvard.
And what makes Republicans call me a liberal is that I want to help people less fortunate than myself.
Kind of sounds like a Christian but so many Christians I know go to church on Sunday and say buyer beware Monday through Friday.
I want to pay more taxes to help those laid off factory workers with retraining and health care.
But for them, I am the liberal elite and the bad guy.
Go figure.
Obviously, the Republicans have great marketing. In fact, it is Orwellian.
39
Part of the problem that Kristof fails to acknowledge is that even the few "principled conservatives" have very false notions of how economics and civil societies work. They've embraced demonstrably false models of economics for instance and most that I have met have ideas about relatively current events that are simply false narratives promulgated by the false news outlet so many favor.
Find a nice honorable person of GOP persuasion, you'll find someone who believes that cutting taxes on the wealthy will bring huge prosperity to all. Think of all the honorable people who love "flat taxes," and insist on balancing the federal budget at all social cost.
Most honorable, amenable GOPers I know believe that anthropogenic global warming is doubted by significant numbers of climate scientists (it's not in spite of the huge campaign to convince the gullible of that idea, fueled by the Kochs).
Just about every republican I've known for my adult life (I'm in my 8th decade) is a firm believer in the "rugged individual" who builds a rich life virtually solely on individual efforts. Kind of like a comic book version of the Ayn Rand ideal. Most virtually ignore the observation that humans are social and have survived and prospered as a species because of our social connections and the social support of civil societies.
Honorable conservatives need to examine their ideologies and do a better job of separating fact from fantasy if they want to form a new, useful and effective party.
14
American voters should bring back principled politicians like President Dwight D. Eisenhower who supported social security and warned us of the military-industrial complex, Governor Nelson Rockefeller who supported public education and incentive awards to students in the CUNY and SUNY systems and Senator Jacob Javits who supported civil rights and worker's unions.
8
First, a third party is created that holds the center right and center left with its platform guided by the ideals of the constitution. Heavens know there is plenty of money out there and a new party can certainly be created with that money.
Second, congress reforms campaign financing to a specified public amount equally distributed to all candidates. Reformation includes banning all other sources of funds that are currently used to bolster certain candidates. This reduces the now obscene amount of money "needed" to run a successful campaign that would be freed up and might be applied to the greater good of the commons.
Third, congress declares that all Americans of voting age must vote and enact the necessary laws to ensure all Americans can vote. Perhaps vote by mail, no postage stamp required.
Fourth, make gerrymandering districts to favor one party over another illegal throughout the land.
Fifth, term limits for all members of congress and service limits for all appointed judges. Three terms are plenty; 15 years for judges is plenty.
Sixth, reform the electoral college to adhere to the reality of where our population resides, eliminating the current system of taxation without representation that the electoral college as currently practiced enshrines.
We must stand up against those in power if we want our democracy back. The first step is a third national party willing to right the wrong turn taken by our elected representatives over the last 30-40 years.
5
Mr. Kristof’s column is well articulated. My only comment is that it should be made more clear that Trump is a symptom of what the Republican Party has become more than he is a cause.
21
A political party should represent a voter's values and candidates need to reflect same in their campaigns and any subsequent elected actions. If they do not, then neither do they automatically deserve your support. Instead of voting for the other or sitting out an election, run for office yourself or otherwise take part in organizations that represent some of those values be they women's health issues; voter suppression; equal pay for equal work; anti-corruption; etc.
1
To call the conservatives the Know Nothing Party wouldn't be incorrect. They profess to Know Nothing of climate change, to Know Nothng of public education, to Know Nothing of science, to Know Nothing of higher public education, to Know Nothing of their voter suppression efforts, to Know Nothing of their fiscal designs to deplete the Federal purse by giving away excesssive tax cuts and cut medicare and social security to pay for them, to Know Nothing of human rights and to Know Nothing of the racism that inspires much of their party support. Of course the original Know Nothing Party (1840) which was supported by the working classes and the poor hated catholics and (recent) immigrants.
1
I am sure that Nick didn't intend to cherry-pick anti-GOP quotes out of context, so I'll ask him if he is willing to meet, say, Andrew Sullivan, half-way -- to be a "principled Democrat"?
In the article that Nick quoted from, Sullivan points out that today's "left will increasingly tolerate nothing that gets in the way of what it calls “social justice,” which far too often reduces individuals to their racial or class or gender identities rather than their merits, or character, or talents. The conservative approach to a multicultural and multiracial society is to keep our focus on the individual and do what’s best to help every individual, regardless of their race, gender, or whatever, to be part of our shared liberal democratic inheritance." Isn't Sullivan right on target about what he calls the "well-intentioned toxins of affirmative action"?
And here is Sullivan on immigration: "The elite indifference to mass immigration — especially the illegal kind — is an ugly pact between Republican elites, eager for cheap, exploitable labor, and Democratic elites, who cynically encourage it because they think it will give them a reliable voting bloc.... [I]t is not inherently racist to seek to slow the pace to integrate the newcomers better, to defuse racial conflict and resentment."
Can Nick see the wisdom in these views? Or is he just mining Sullivan's essay for his own political ends?
3
@Ian Maitland
Thanks for your presentation of a reasonable conservative perspective, which unfortunately is increasingly rare these days. There is much in Andrew Sullivan's perspective that I find convincing. But he often exaggerates the influence of the cultural left on the politics of the Democratic Party, as you also do by quoting some of his more sweeping assertions. Very few practicing Democrats are all in with the identity politics that so scares conservatives and it is very hard to identify actual policies imposed by Democrats that threaten "our shared liberal democratic inheritance." The big asymmetry in our politics today is that media conservatives search the writings and statements of a powerless academic fringe to find new excesses that will outrage its base, while mainstream liberals are forced to resist the very real repercussions of climate change denial, tax windfalls for the wealthy, suppression of minority voting and other right-wing extremism.
1
"Unfortunately, the principled version of the Republican Party in Congress has virtually collapsed, a crisis compounded by the death of Senator John McCain."
John McCain was the darling of the liberal media up until the point he decided to run for President, so please don't lecture anyone about principles.
2
If the GOP is blind to the Russian influence of our elections, I think it is time for the European Union, Canada, Mexico and NATO countries in general to start their efforts to influence our elections as well. Then we might hear lots of cursing and finger pointing by the GOP and its infantile leader.
1
Last time I looked the republicans ran everything and they got two supreme court justices in. Not bad for a party that”lost its way”. The economy is cooking and turns out ppl could care less about the swamp ,being how it’s over run with old cold blooded reptiles and swamp things (Lindsey Graham). I guess time will tell. Nov is coming fast and well I think it will determine what Americans soul truly looks like. I hate to say it but I think we’re leaning toward the dark side. Dick Cheney is proud I’m guessing.
"Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the party..."
Really? Name five.
5
It seems that Saudi Arabia has just invented a new sport: finger-free fist fighting. What can possibly come next? Legless football? How about hands-free baseball or arms-free hockey?
One of these options is not like the others. One of them involves such profound brutality that the mind cannot even begin to plumb the depths of the gratuitous depravity.
President Trump has stipulated that the latest Saudi account is credible. the US Congress shows no concern over such a free pass given to our president by its unimaginably craven legislators.
I am waiting for the new edition of Roget's Thesaurus. I plan to go straight for the definition of the word "Cowardice." The synonym that I expect to see is "The United States Congress."
2
Republicans are destroying American democracy. When Donald trump speaks he is speaking the words of every Republican. When he lies they lie. He is the core of who they are. He is the essence of conservatism. Ask yourself, do you believe anything coming out of any federal agency now. If a Republican speaks, you cannot trust it. The Supreme Court is destroyed. It no longer represents America. All Republican justices on the court and in the federal judiciary speak as Donald trump speaks. They are Donald Trump. When Donald trump lies they all lie. How do deal with a party that willingly conspired with Russia to overthrow the US government. What can one expect? George Bush’s great adventure in Iraq led to the death of over 500,000 Iraqi. Lying is the foundation of the Republican Party and of conservatism. Just think if voter suppression had not led the Supreme Court to decide for George Bush maybe a million people would be alive today.
3
Can we please stop referring to these thugs as the "Party of Lincoln"? It's ridiculous already. And they have not "lost their way", this is their way.
These people have absolutely nothing in common with Lincoln or what that party represented 160 years ago.
Trump is not an anomaly, they have been waiting for his arrival or somebody like him ever since Reagan declared war on our government. And along with that merciless sociopath of the senate Mitch McConnell, they are going to gleefully provide us all with a front row seat to the end our our democratic experiment.
Unless, of course, a small miracle happens this November, but even that may only provide a temporary stay of execution.
As far as "principled republicans", I've been able to count about a dozen since Trump's election.
Is that enough to start a new party after we blow up the current one?
7
Watching American politics from another country is like watching an alcoholic drink themselves to death: the powerlessness over the situation is overwhelming. Ethics are all but gone from from the U.S. landscape, sad, as your morally bankrupt President would say.
4
"Principled Republicans"?
Sorry, that's an utter oxymoron in 2018.
Thanks to Trump, McConnell, Ryan, etc...
6
Good luck, Mr. Kristof. It appears to me that there is not one scintilla of decency left in the Republican party.
Every time it seems they can sink no lower, they sink lower: Trump feeding alibis to MBS about Khashoggi and cozying up to other tyrants; McConnell's theft of a Supreme Court seat and the Kavanaugh debacle; Congressional candidates' vows to protect Obamacare when the real agenda is to destroy it; the kidnapping and caging of innocent children; the enactment of numerous laws that will hasten global warming with all its threats to life on earth; etc., etc., etc.
It's not just Donald Trump, obscene and amoral as he is; every single Republican is complicit in his misdeeds, and that doesn't take into consideration all of their own. The GOP is irredeemably corrupt.
That's why we need to vote out every single Republican on the ballot this fall, from governors and senators down to county clerks and other local functionaries.
We need a responsible, honest center-right party, but the Republican party today is the party of kidnappers, rapists, perjurers, child molesters, wife beaters, Nazis, KKK, Russian dupes and tools, the worst of the worst. And it appears they will abandon democracy before they abandon their grip on power unless we act and act soon.
2
All agreed, but something for Mr. Kristof to think about. He has written columns about the super-special just plain folks in his home town, Yamhill, Oregon, and how they just couldn't be motivated by bigotry against women and people of color, how it must be economic anxiety.
His side, which is my side, needs to wake up.
1
"Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the (GOP) party"
Please name one. For the life of me, I can't. Lockstep and utterly dishonest. The party of Lie, Cheat and Steal.
1
Mr Kristof says nothing of Mitch McConnell's lies and theft of a Supreme Court seat and the federal judiciary. He says nothing of the GOP majority in the Senate choosing to believe Brett Kavanaugh's lies, tolerate his temper tantrum and disrespect for Democratic senators, and vote to give him a seat on the Supreme Court for life.
Kavanaugh committed perjury when he said he only knew of the Ramirez allegations against him AFTER the New Yorker published its article. NBC reported that there are text messages from his Yale colleagues talking about his efforts to defend himself against the Ramirez allegations BEFORE the New Yorker article.
The FBI did not investigate this.
The GOP is a gang of liars and thieves who do not deserve to hold power. We give elected officials our power in trust. We take our power back when we vote. Power to the people is more necessary now than ever.
President Trump combines administrative incompetence with moral corruption and is unworthy of the Party of Reagan, Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln. His priorities seem to be to divide the country as much as possible, to profit from the Presidency as much as possible, to sell arms to murderous monarchs and to heap misery upon desperate people fleeing a desperate situation and seeking asylum in America; which is their right. Meanwhile the Russians (!) continue to meddle in our elections, with impunity.
A time will come when decent folks will be ashamed to admit any association with Trump. He is unfit for office and I call on fellow conservatives to oppose him and everything he stands for.
2
The part I like best is that while I’d known how greedy and repressive Republicans like Mitch and Ted really were, I’d had no idea just how completely gutless they also were.
Well, we got that cleared up, and for this, we thank you.
I agree with you that we need functioning conservative party on right, but today's GOP is not conservative.
They're white nationalists.
1
Harsh judgment of the republican party, but all is true. In the name of loyalty to party, they have thrashed the country and trampled it's democracy, as the ultimate hypocrites like Trump, Ryan and McConnell are vivid examples of. The G.O.P. must be 'burned' to the ground, as there is no decent remnant to know how to behave with decency. That Trump is trampling on all we ought to honor in a free society is a fact. What is abhorrent is the G.O.P.'s congress dereliction of duty in countering his unscrupulousness in supporting criminal despots around the world (and I feel it is superfluous to cite examples, as you likely would concur).
1
This article is an affront to wolves and cougars! Yes, they may be predatory, but — unlike the Republicans in the current Senate — they seldom take more than they need to survive.
Okay. Now do Democrats. Really. Perhaps the best way to counter the political party, drunk on power, is to... win elections.
Bill Clinton did it after Bush. So did Obama (after Bush II).
Crying and hoping the other side changes to what you want them to be is foolish. IF the Democrats can manage to find a voice, win the Presidency, the Republicans will be checked.
But for this Clinton Voter, I fail to see how the Democrats platform of resistance, screaming, and bullying folks in public is going to do anything but harden those they disagree.
And with this screaming supported by Democratic leaders, I find myself wanting a return on the Principled Democrat.
1
Trump, Rep Steve King and the GOP have unleashed the God's of racism and bigotry. Signs of blatant racism by white people are seen and recorded each day in the US. Latest news is about VT House rep Kiah Morris, a young black woman, who has had to drop out of her unopposed race due to threats and intimidation by whites. She also has to move to another town.
Is VT in the same league as GA, LA, SC, etc when it comes to white supremacy, racism, and bigotry? Seems so. Where is Bernie on this?
Regrettably I think the problem rests with the population itself. None of us has really much ability as individuals. Put anyone, regardless of brilliance, out in a northern forest in winter, and by themselves they will die. We all share 70% of our DNA with a slug. Einstein couldn't so much as make a pencil by himself. Our only strength is in how we can work together and how we can accumulate and share knowledge, which ability is toxically at risk when dishonesty is prevalent as is now the case. The idea that the problem is with a bunch of corrupt politicians riding herd over a basically decent population is quite challenged by the recent NPR/PBS Marist poll that showed a huge swath of Americans were in favour of confirming Judge Kavanagh even if it were true that he was a rapist. Think about it. The problem is the population itself and moral leadership from individuals such as Pat Robertson who believe it is worth the money to support murder. And now the US government weighs whether it will seriously condemn the Saudis for an extra-territorial murder after how many years of operating a drone assassination program that has killed how many innocents? If we all go extinct from toxic emissions out of stagnant oceans resulting from global warming the only real loss may be what we might have been if we had developed greater loyalty to honesty and truly supporting our fellow citizens throughout the world.
3
"Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the party " Nick, could you please name one other than Murkowski? We've lost Susan Collins.
2
ironically in the accompanying image, Mitch McConnell’s telling dark shadow is cast on the wall.
1
Nicholas,
You are one of my favorite columnists, you once wrote a column that gave me some additional wind at my back that literally saved my life. I will always be grateful for that.
But............you are looking for something that doesn't exist. It seriously stopped existing when Christian Conservatives began to control the party's agenda and drove it further and further right. Then they were joined by the monied interests who joined the Christian Conservatives because, well why not if they were consolidating all this power. More push to the right. Less and less principal, more agenda and power grabbing, and ironically they claim that this is what Democrats are guilty of. UGH!!
John McCain had principals, but he had sworn allegiance to several entities that still nauseated me (guns and the Military establishment). But I will concede that his principals were rock solid. Now we have left (pardon the pun) a few that simply can't stomach how corrupt DJT and his band of merry thieves are and are leaving, presumably to safe guard a small piece of their reputation so to come back when it may be safer to do so like Jeff Flake and Paul Ryan. Still I would hardly call Ryan principled when he unleashed that nonsensical budget while running for VP.
Stop looking, Principled Republicans are a thing of the distant past.
3
I confess, I have used the name of several animals to express my disgust with Trump and the GOP. It’s not fair to the animals. And the Republicans who have failed for two years to confront Trump are not poodles. They are like Putin government puppets or a lawless mobster gang or supporters of fascism (exalting nation and race … favoring autocratic government … allegiance/loyalty to a dictatorial leader and suppressing opposition – we are starting with voter suppression and encouraging physical harm to the press).
This party means to harm most of us one way or another. And Trump’s followers fail to see or admit they will be hurt too. Whether drastic cuts to health insurance or continued tariffs or reduction to the “entitlement programs” or further deterioration of voting rights or failure to take climate change seriously or … most of us and many in the world will be harmed by the actions of this corrupt party. Poodles are cute and friendly; the GOP is harsh, mean -spirited, nasty, frightening.
2
"Democrats rage at evangelical Christians who embrace a philanderer, but they themselves denounce corruption while still supporting Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey."
It would be ridiculous to assume the people who voted for Menendez are typical of all Democrats. And voting for miscreants is certainly not limited to one party.
4
The Republican party has not been center right for quite some time.
1
The gop has definitely not lost its way. It is owned by a small set of people with immense wealth, with operatives working on their behalf, and by gangs of opportunistic thugs and bullies who seek only to impose their will on others. These are intellectuallly shallow men and women who have discarded any internal moral compass to guide them. Alas, too many of our fellow Americans are uneducated or undereducated simpletons who prefer to be entertained than enlightened and cheer on these thugs. It is not the gop, but rather Americans who are lost, truly deeply and miserably lost.
2
Menendez is a corrupt old-style Dem. As a Dem, I would like it if our party wins back the Senate.
But I would rather Menendez lose and we can rid ourselves of crooks like him. We need young honest, open minded candidates that can look forward. The old way is gone. We need to appeal to the voters who are in their 20s and 30s. They are our future.
1
This Opinion should be entitled "Desperately Seeking Principled Politicians."
Kristof ignores the this heavily flawed gallery of Democratic leaders to name a few
1. Hillary Clinton
2. Bill Clinton
3. Senator Menendez (ethical abuses and corruption)
4. Senator Blumenthal (Viet Nam military service fabrication)
5. Senator Elizabeth Warren ("person of color"?)
6. Senator Cory Booker (Spartacus?)
7. Representative Pelosi and Senator Schumer
4
The greed, selfishness, indifference toward others, lack of empathy, have all been there. But now, largely because of the followers of the simplistic Ayn Rand and the horrible ruling of Citizen’s United, it is okay to be open about their racism, misogyny, self absorbed greed, disgust of anyone who isn’t like them.
The lack of any accountability to bankers and Wall Streeters after the crash of 2008 is a very black mark on the country’s history. And now, under a different name, we are going there again. This can explain much of the cult like following of Trump in the more left behind parts of the nation.
2
I totally agree. This is a basic civics lesson that I learned in sixth grade about a brilliant concept of checks and balances. Today however it appears the Supreme Court is given a partisan test before a nominee is appointed, if they can be appointed at all. The Congress is a bunch of puppets of the ruling party ignoring their constituents and blindly following the President. The executive branch shows more signs of corruption and deceit than I would have thought possible except under perhaps a different type of government, dictator maybe? And the lies! Every day the lies! So yes I blame the Republicans for letting it reach this level of complete mess. I think it will take the Democrats blue wave to stop it.
3
Personally, I wish I could vote for someone else other then Senator Menendez, but his apponent is a Republican, and I feel the Republican Party is just to dishonest. In this day and age I feel I have vote for the Party that still believes in reality.
6
@rob
Hi, Rob,
I agree with you! As a fellow Democrat, I am disgusted by Menendez's corruption, but I cannot vote for a Republican this year. Once 45 is out of office and the Republicans come to their senses, I will vote for the more honest of the candidates. This year's vote is to reign in the cuckoo's power.
(A) the only true bigotry of any significance in the US today is identity politics, as the continuing headlines about Harvard’s nakedly racialist policies demonstrate. “White nationalism” isn’t an actual thing – although it would serve the identity politics fools right if it were. Progressives shameless advocate for racially based voting; if your candidates are openly seeking “Black and brown votes”, how is a “white” guy supposed to take that?
(B) vote suppression - like the wage gap - is a leftist myth and anyone who mouths it is in no way, shape, or form a conservative;
(C) more’s the pity that the GOP DIDN’T repeal the execrable ACA. Give the Dems credit; they committed political suicide to pass it. They put their principles – such as they are – first, and paid the price. Would that the GOP would show the courage to kill some “popular”, but idiotic, programs, even if it meant losing an election;
(D) the “stimulus” was a catastrophically expensive fraud, just like Keynesian politics, which failed on its own terms. And tax cuts NEVER cause deficits; only spending does. Revenues are up post tax cut, but domestic spending is through the roof.
It’s fine to bellyache about the GOP’s unwillingness to address the deficit or cut spending. But to empower the democrats, who would bloat the size, scope, and expense of the government, and represent an existential threat to the rule of law, is simply not a viable alternative.
D) The only result of reducing revenues when they are not in surplus is a short fall that requires cutting services or borrowing money. Repeated efforts to cut taxes despite increasing demands for funds have been attempted since Reagan insisted that doing so raises revenues by expanding the economy. They created deficits. That’s the mathematics.
@Michael I am sick of hearing about your parallel world, which has no relationship to the reality I inhabit.
This is well-intentioned, but you can't insult people Monday through Friday and then give them helpful advice on Sunday. The Republican Party will do fine with or without NY Times.
3
@Mike Livingston
Wait until you get the bill in the mail.
The last tax cut took what was a projected deficit of $600 Billion for 2018 before the tax cut and is expected to almost double the deficit to $1 Trillion by 2020.
The projected ten year increase in the debt is $12 Trillion.
That is $80,000 per tax payer on our credit card.
All so we can give more tax cuts to the wealthy.
We didn't learn with Reagan and W Bush so McConnell and Ryan have done it again.
And this is after eight years of complaining about the debt when it was Obama.
6
Sadly, though, the country is doing horribly by the Republican Party.
A Principled Republican? Surely Mr. Kristof, you can recognize a true oxymoron when you see one.
2
They are extinct, they started dying off during reconstruction and disappeared with the civil rights movement of the 1960's...
What makes Nick Kristoff think that today’s corrupt, effete, hypocritical Republican Party leadership has the slightest interest in reform (let alone self-reform)? Or that it will allow itself to be corrected? Or replaced?
McConnell and Graham, to name just two, behave like dukes serving kings. Future elections won’t matter. Why is that? Because they believe that they have reached a “permanent Republican majority”, so what they do doesn’t matter? Or, because they know something that we don’t know? Is it because they don’t believe many more future elections will be held?
These politicians represent the interests, present and future, of the wealthiest people on the planet. Through lobbyists, the Republican Party accepts laundered (“bundled”) “contributions”, technically illegal, from abroad, so its owners are to be found everywhere.
Why does Nick Kristoff believe that any of those people have the slightest interest in an efficiently functioning two political party check-&-balance democratic system? Or that they are willing to lessen (let alone relinquish) their stranglehold on policymaking, and Congress, and — through Trump — our Executive branch? Naïveté aside ... .
1
It’s no secret that the most impoverished people and economies are in those cities and states which have been ruled by democrats for decades. I love the Republicans new motto, “democrats are for mobs, republicans are for jobs.” Ain’t that the truth!!!
Check out your black “friend’s” in Mississippi, Dewd.
Desperately seeking... well, good luck with that. The last Republican who had even a shred of integrity (John McCain) is dead. Either we vote them out and move towards a brighter future, or we get more corruption, backward thinking, and lies. It’s just not that complicated.
"America needs a robust center-right party to hold progressives like me accountable".
Mr. Kristof, the US already has - compared to all other advanced nations - a robust center-right party, and its name is the Democratic Party.
The Republican Party already started to move to the arch-right since the election of a man with darker skin and a funny name.
Under the self-proclaimed very stable genius that party has now arrived at the abyss of fascism pure.
MAGA has morphed into MARA - Make America Rassenrein Again.
1
Again, I say, welcome to the party, Nick. All this rot of the GOP and it's path-making for Trump were underway for years while you ran around the world like a scalded cat trying to save every poor human on earth. You failed to see that, as America rotted at home, its influence abroad would also rot. The party of Lincoln--that died the same year he did. The GOP embraces white nationalists? Try Reagan's speech A Time for Choosing, in 1964 and the ensuing Southern Strategy. John McCain, RIP? What did he ever do except graze on the edge of the GOP herd? He was a hero forty years ago?
3
There is no democracy in a nation where any person is above the law. And the GOP doesn’t yet dare say outright what leader Donald Trump already has: That only their party should have political rights, and only their political enemies should be prosecuted by the Justice Department, but when you follow their actions it is plain that they will use the Constitution for toilet paper, while waving a flag that will no longer stand for the idea that was "America".
6
Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and Eric Kantor, remember the the Young Guns?, were responsible for getting 67 pf 83 Tea Party Candidates running for House seats in 2010 elected, a turning point for the Republican Party that witnessed the end to the GOP moderate voices who could reach across the aisle.
The Seanate soon followed, becaming a body of obstructiuonista as well producing the'gridlock' we've witnessed for two decades now.
And though the media blames both parties for their failure to reach across the aisle, It's wholy been the Republicans, with history clearly having Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell in its crosshairs, defining their legacy for all time, as the chief architects of this Republican Obstructionim.
3
Not. In the 21st century, principled republican is an oxymoron. Vote the bums out!
Yet, we're desperately seeking principled Democrats. Not the types who grand-stand before cameras.
1
First, Vote.
Second, vote D. It may not be pretty or easy. Elections are about choices. I’m old. Never had an easy choice except JFK. Less bad is better than what u want but can’t get. Nader begat Bush; Bern begat Trump.
There is no redemption for the Republican Party. It is rotten to its core.
2
What we need is a third party--The Centrist Party.
3
Agreed, but how? We're still being so distracted by the one person in the administration who has the least power: The President. We know he's not a leader, not a thinker, not an imaginer. All the things he's doing is because we can't take our eyes off him as the real dealmakers loot the treasury and trash the constitution. Not to mention that democracy exists in name only when the will of the people is ignored through the shenanigans of the party. Do you think Trump could even spell gerrymandering? Could he rig an election? He couldn't even rig the slot machines in his own casinos, to make a profit.
4 out of 5 articles on politics still treat Trump as the center of the universe. He's not. He's nothing but what we make him, and that was true in the run-up to 2016 as well, when his column inches numbered about 100 to 1 in proportion to his adversaries.
Are we ready to have a moratorium on Orange-haired-short--fingered-vulgarian jokes and take on the machine, or is it just too too much fun feeling superior?
1
"Principled Republicans!"
That is the problem. The USA needs a 2 or 3 party system. In the past our country has benefited enormously from the GOP party. But today, they are crooks, fighters, low-lifer, uneducated thugs, just like our president.
Even more mind-boggling is that so few former GOPers of integrity have stood up to the corruption there party is bringing....just look at how Susan Collins has sold out. Quite frankly, McCain sold out before he learned he was dying; he didn't stand up against Trump when Trump shitted all over McCain by ridiculing his military years!
It will take years for our country to heal from the narcissism and evil deeds of Trump and Mitch McConnell. I hope these two men, in particular, suffer and are shamed the rest of their lives.
2
The Republican Party that Nicholas Kristof pines for started dying in 1968, when Harry Dent contrived the "Southern Strategy," and was finally killed when Lee Atwater took over the party's strategy in Seventies. It has been corrupt & amoral ever since, and like Humpty Dumpty, not all the columnists in the world will ever put it back together again.
If John McCain (Keating Five, anyone? Sarah Palin, anyone? voting with Tump 85%, anyone) is Kristof's idea of a Republican hero, he needs to reflect on on the title of Simone Signoret's autobiography, "Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be."
As the saying went, get real (please).
1
And, Mr. Kristof, you'll wait a long time. Here's a greatest hits of Republicans during my lifetime:
1. 1953--Dwight D. Eisenhower's CIA overthrows Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
2. 1961--Dwight D. Eisenbhower's CIA assassinates the Congo's Patrice Lumumba.
3. 1968--Richard Nixon sabotages LBJ's peace talks by holding back-channel talks with South Vietnam, urging them to delay a decision until after the election.
4. 1972-1974--Watergate.
5. 1980--Ronald Reagan appeals to the racist South and swears fidelity to "states' rights" as he launched his campaign for the presidency.
6. 1981--"Government is the problem," from Reagan's Inauguration.
7. 1988--G.H.W. Bush wins the presidency on the backs of white backlash to an ad portraying a black man as menace to society. Strategist Lee Atwater took the bow.
8. 2001--G.W. Bush ignores intercepts from his intelligence agencies that Osama bin Laden planned an attack on U.S. soil.
9. 2002-2007. G.W. Bush invades Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, lying that weapons of mass destruction is the reason.
10. 2011--Donald Trump tells the world that President Barack Obama is not an American citizen, born in Kenya. Eight-five percent of Republicans believe him.
11. 2009--Mitch McConnell promises to make Barack Obama a "one-term president."
12. 2016--McConnell steals a SCOTUS nominee from Mr. Obama.
13. 2016--Donald Trump wins the presidency. All else follows.
How's that, Mr. Kristof, for "principled Republicans?"
7
This column is already 10 years old. Trump is now calling any Democrat, not just paid politicians, evil. They are now coming for the rest of us. Trump Country is now officially Barvaria 1938
2
This is a case of right hand not knowing what the left hand is up to. "I also noted some great accomplishments, from the superb diplomacy of George H.W. Bush after the Cold War to the lifesaving AIDS program of George W. Bush in the 2000s."
With his right arm, George W Bush showered missiles on Iraq in the middle east killing thousands of innocent children men and women and laying an entire country in ruins, his left arm felt a surge of pity and decided to fund AIDs programs in Africa. What you are trying to say Nick, is that saving lives from AIDS in one continent, somehow neutralizes the mass killings of people from an ancient civilization.
1
Kristof wrote:
"Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the [Republican] party."
Really? Can you please name any? Jeff Flake? He buckled. Murkowski? Her principles change with the wind. Susan Collins was the last hope, until she sold her soul for Kavanaugh.
Sure, every once in a while, one of them says something fairly reasonable, e.g. Kasich, Portman, Sasse. But when push comes to shove, they all choose party over country.
I'll call someone a "principled Republican" when he/she starts calling out Trump for lying and his continuous disgusting behavior. I'll call someone a "principled Republican" when he/she starts calling out Fox and the rest of the Rightwing Media Cabal for destroying all semblance of civility in our country.
I'm tired of reading Liberal columnists equivocate, trying to appear reasonable and play nice with a bunch of hypocritical intransigents. They don't care about us; they think we're unpatriotic, evil, etc. They will call us crazy mobs regardless of reality. They don't care that half of their party actually hates us.
It's quaint (and disingenuous) to say that they have "lost their way." The truth is that they have devolved into shameless partisan hypocrites, who don't care about who and what gets destroyed as long as they continue to hoard power.
In a word, they are indeed deplorable.
3
Apparently the death bells tolling for my parents' continually-farther-leftward, ever more socialist Democratic Party have reached Mr. Kristof's ears and he reacts with a classic attempt to turn this around on his assigned enemies.
The GOP took over twelve hundred elective positions from the Dems after the abysmal Obama health-care bill passed in 2010. The GOP now controls both houses of Congress, the White House, and seems to have a majority of originalists on the Supreme Court.
The GOP also has everyone wanting work jobs ready for them while holding off foreign workers and competition.
BUT it's the REPUBLICANS who are in trouble? Yeah, and Alabama's Crimson Tide wiill lose a football game to Wet Rock U. next week, too.
We know you hate these people. Nick. Don't blather it up with supposed remedies to make them more like your employers.
1
Shirley you jest? No I'm serious, and stop calling me Shirley.
But really, c'mon; there are no "principled republicans" Nick.
As Carville pointed out, "It's the economy, stupid!"
Americans may swing to the right or left, but when it comes to stepping into the voting booth, it's economic considerations that seem to weigh most heavily. Most conservatives I know loathe Donald Trump but love what he's doing - mostly regarding the economy. I get the impression most Americans have resigned themselves to tolerating the amoral leadership in Congress (from both parties), as long as their personal lifestyles aren't disrupted too much.
My prediction is that, absent any economic bombshells in the next few weeks, Democrats will take over the House and Republicans will keep the Senate - and we'll have another deadlocked Congress.
Sadly, we get the exact Congress we vote for.
Principled Republicans are rapidly going the way of the dodo bird. Trump is leading a Gresham's law of politics: bad Republicans drive good ones out.
all you have to do is look at Mitch's wardrobe to see who he is, and who he works for.
The last Republican I have respect for walked out of the Senate months ago. John McCain wan't perfect and only began to shine after being burnished by the Keating 5 corruption scandal in 1989. The rest are a pack of kowtowing mimics that do the bidding for powerful wealthy special interests.
"Principled Republican"? That is an oxymoron. Party of Lincoln? This phrase should be permanently disposed of in the trash bin. It is deplorable that republicans actually still use it ,without a snicker. It is remarkable that anybody would proclaim that Republicans have an iota of principle beyond tax cuts; hardly a principle. For over forty years, they have been a one trick pony,tax cuts, and then the flavor of the month: Gay marriage, deregulation, abortion, guns, god in schools, guns in schools,christ in shopping malls, voting rights repeal, anti-affirmative action, and they approve of payoffs to porn stars. Principled Republicans?
Republicans stand for enriching the one percent in order to keep the big money flowing into Republican campaigns. They also believe in killing the environment and destroying the standing of the US as the leader of the world.
3
I continue to wonder how many Republicans in Congress are on Putin's payroll...
1
I'll do it!!! I lead going forward! For I am Spartacus!!!! No Wait.......I am a Native American Indian! Any way. You get it! We are much more principled here on the Blue side...
1
Stop! We know you are desperate. The great blue wave is failing to materialize, and your dream of neutralizing Trump with a Democrat house is in jeopardy. OK, we get it.
But your appeals to the Never Trumpers are falling upon deaf ears. Why? Because Trump is delivering more conservative progress than any center-right moderate RINO ever could. Trump is a very troubling human being, but he has the courage to actually govern as a conservative. Tax cuts, deregulation, originalist conservative judicial nominees and no more sacrificing American interests to some obscure academic form of globalism. ISIS, the Chicoms and the North Koreans are backing down, the Europeans are being forced to ante up, and Mexico is standing up to the immigrant caravan. AND the supposedly impossible 4-percent growth is occurring.
I wish he would stop tweeting, moderate his personal attacks and keep his pants zipped up. But compared with talk only RINO governance or, worse yet, socialism and mandatory political correctness imposed by the likes of Hillary, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, give me Trump any day.
A blue wave is not the solution to any problem Republicans might have. Stop trying to divide us.
Disagree strongly. The GOP as it presents itself now, and for the last thirty years, is a lying, cheating, conniving, self-dealing, at times, treasonous and law-perverting group of individuals, bought and paid for by corporate America and others (Russia, NRA, Israel, etc), that seeks to strangle the workers of this country, and enjoy a world of criminally low wages, no limits or regulations, no responsibility for the waste they lay to the environment or resources, and a tax free pursuit of their individual wealth and profit. Business is war, the GOP is the weapon and the ordinary citizens of this country are collateral and intended damage. The Republican Party has become a weapon of the thugs of this world. It needs to be demolished, and replaced with a political party that is powered by the voters, citizens and workers of this nation. They are frat boys crazed with the abuse of power at this time.
2
Most Americans are not fascist. The majority of Americans believe in controling our borders. I'll guess the majority think immigration is a bigger problem that a beige suit. Both sides of congress are not doing a thing.
1
Mr Kristof is so eternally hopeful, it's painful.
Of course principled Republicans do not exist: principled and Republican are contradictory terms. Any why on earth would you seek, let alone desperately, such a self-contradictory but nasty unicorn?
1
Good luck in your search. Diogenes would also be wasting his time.
The GOP is principled: greed, greed, greed.
3
Politics has also been a compromise and so it is with Trump. The old republican party and the old democrat party twice in my lifetime promised immigration reform that would establish control over who enters this country. I consider that a principled position to take. There is no inherent right for anyone to enter this country and we have an absolute right to establish what the requirements and limitations for immigration should be. The parties Kristof, Boot , Sullivan, Will and the other usual suspects long for have lied to the American people with their promises on immigration control. The wonderful Obama first said correctly that he could do nothing about the Dreamers because it was not in his presidential power. But then his deferral action directly and illegally contradicted what he correctly stated first time round. If you do not have the power, then arrogate it to yourself. That should be an impeachable offense. Fool me once, fool me twice. Take the position multiple times over decades for cheap labor capitalists and Democrats stuffing the country and in the future the ballot boxes with largely poor and uneducated aliens, and the Grand Old Party in particular needs just the change that Kristof decries. These thankfully former Republicans place form over substance. And the Democrats are now a party of speech curtailment, idea suppression on college campuses, harassment of political opponents, violence in the streets like the Nazis they decry but imitate. Proud of that?
except for the double standard that the democrats represent! they criticize republicans for content, but claim it’s different when they are accused of the same related crimes...
Mitch McConnell’s lies about needing to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to pay for Trump’s tax cut are Pants on Fire level lying. Vote these leeches out- they are robbing us blind.
How do people think they will survive in old age if the GOP grabs funds Americans have saved for retirement???
1
A principled Republican? As someone remarked to Diogenes, "You're going to need a bigger lantern."
1
“Now that we have stolen everything, let’s all play nice.”
4
Your comment about poodles is a disgrace to dogs. Republicans didn't vote for the stimulus or any proposal from Democrats because they abandoned America. And it worked! Obama was too timid and naive to understand the debased philosophy that drives Republican hatred of anyone but the wealthy, greedy, and cruel. FDR said opponents of Social Security want to throw old people on the trash heap like wrinkled rinds, and not much has changed.
3
The term principled Republicans is a total oxymoron. Whatever this may have meant during the Eisenhower Administration is long dead.
Who are we kidding? We no longer have a democracy. We have a self serving rabble of people out for their own best interests. The internet and social media set us all free with the tea party. Now its anything goes. Truth no longer needs to be true. Free speech has become dangerous noise and nonsense. The president is a rabble rouser and manipulator who acts only in his perceived self interests. The legislators are a disgrace and will go as low as the occasion demands. They have trampled the constitutional intention for equal houses of government. How much more can this grand old lady withstand???
4
My question is: Why do Republicans hate America and all the freedoms afforded by our Constitution?
Why? Why can't we have a fair, level playing field with different ideas being put forward with respect and consideration and then voted upon? That's America. And America, for some reason, is truly hated by Republicans. Is it just about power? Racism?
They lie, they cheat, they suppress the vote....all to win power. So I guess....it's only POWER that they care about. With POWER in their hands comes corruption, money, misogyny, racism.
I say: POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Vote all R's OUT in 17 days!
3
Vote GOP and get the GOP special wellness program that will be the new healthcare plan, it's a signed photo of Trump and Graham praying for you to get better soon. As a bonus there will be a video of children being forcibly removed from their parents at the border with a special Trump narrative at the end telling them they will never see their children again. Finally Trump will pledge $1M that will be sent to the accused abuser fund to go for their legal bills....
2
Where’s the “ principled republicans “ holding office ??? I certainly don’t know any, that’s a unicorn hunt. Don’t listen to what they SAY, watch how they VOTE. Vichy Republicans, and I’ve been saying THAT for two years, in these pages. VOTE in November. Neuter that Creature. Seriously.
2
Donald J. Trump is the inevitable result of decades of cynical Republican maneuvering and manipulation where the welfare of their party was always placed ahead of the welfare of their country.
That Trump is a mentally unstable, ignorant, autocratic narcissist matters not because he
embodies everything they've schemed and dreamed to accomplish.
If Democrats cannot take the House of Representatives this mid-term then the future looks very bleak indeed, with large scale violence between polarized groups in American society a very real probability.
Republicans may have drunk the Kool-Aid, but those of us who can recognize crypto-fascism when we see it can still vote in enough numbers to turn this around-- but we must VOTE.
2
Trumps supporters which includes the Christian Right are willing to let Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid be dismantle without any concern for the lives that will be impacted, they are willing to let a mentally unstable narcissist brat attack our intelligence agencies, State Department, EPA, press, education system and put the world's climate in a perilous spiral all the time supporting brutal regimes. Why because the pro self salvation club want to over turn Roe v Wade and a tax break.
1
You lost me at ".... principled version of the Republican Party in Congress has virtually collapsed, a crisis compounded by the death of Senator John McCain ..." The John McCain who put party before country, voting to go to Iraq, or the John McCain who put his family before country voting for tax cuts for the rich for he and his family. You can put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig.
4
principled republicans? Mr. Kristof might as well seek unicorns. To be clear it is not just the party leadership every vote in support of any republican is a vote for traitorous bigots cause that is who they are
It's a mistake for Republicans to care what Kristof and his ilk think about policies. Kristof wants things we find morally repugnant, like granting amnesty for illegals. Republicans should do something really radical and listen to their constituents: we want immigration radically reduced or halted and illegal aliens deported.
I totally agree with Kristof, though: it's time for the Republican party to show some backbone and do what's right for the country for once.
I prefer Sen Flake's comment that the GOP made a Faustian bargain. In other words it sold its soul to follow Trump. It is now absolutely bereft of credibility, morality and any right to govern. The collective silence of the GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee to question Kavanaugh is testimony to their spineless cowardice and silent bovine trudge to the milking sheds come November. If ever a party needed to be demolished and rebuilt it is the American GOP. So many are just payroll politicians without an ounce of backbone or moral fibre. With daily insults from the White House, which one has ever spoken out? The latest was calling Stormy Daniels Horseface. How can overseas investors take this country seriously? From this side of the Atlantic, the toxic implosion of the GOP is one of the ugliest train wrecks I've ever seen in a long time in American politics and Trump keeps on adding the gasoline.
2
It's so interesting that the only answer to the systemic coverup of molestation of children by Roman Catholic clergy is the dismantling of the entire structure by calling for the resignation of Cardinals and bishops worldwide AND the only answer to the corruption of the Republican party (not that Democrats are entirely exempt but it's not systemic) is to vote them all out so they have two generations to cleanse and refocus.
Game theory was unknown at the founding. Now we know that competition leads to Nash equilibriums in the form of Cournot duopolies and monopolies. Republican dominance starts with giving treasury to wealthy interests who kick back 10% in dark money. It will only end when those men get repulsed, like Bloomberg, Wexner, Klarman...or we change the game from winner-take-all and fracture the duopoly.
For god's sake, they have what they have always wanted. Why would they want to change.
Power is intoxicating and the rest of us get the hangover. So we'd had better make sure that they are forced to take the pledge if we don't want to have a perpetual hangover.
Vote!
2
Oh Mr. Kristof. I am with you, sir--with you--WITH YOU.
Full disclosure:
I study the photograph of Mr. McConnell that graces your column--
--and I feel genuine hatred stirring within me.
The stony face of the incorrigible political hack!--
--the man that implacably, time and time again--
--put his party before his country.
But moving on--
--yes. I agree. Wholeheartedly. We DO need a moderately right-of-center part. We DO need a moderately left-of-center party. Like yin and yang. Like Gilbert and Sullivan. BOTH parties working together--checking each other--inspiriting each other--RILING each other--
--each (in its own way) helping to run this mighty United States of America.
What I have said of Mr. McConnell is eminently true of his party.
A squalid assemblage (for the most part) of hacks--yes men--time-servers.
A party without guts. A party without principles. A party without convictions.
Enthralled to the most corrupt, incompetent demagogue ever to occupy the White House.
And Mr. George Will--of ALL people!--urging us all to vote Democratic.
Seldom (over the past thirty some years) have I EVER agreed with Mr. George Will.
But I do now.
Just as I agree with YOU, Mr. Kristof. And hey!
I'm still a registered Republican!
Boy, have I forsaken my roots. But no!
They've forsaken THEIR roots.
Let's all forsake them--
--TOGETHER!
3
Vote!
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
I look at Christian Fundamentalists and ask myself “What do they see these days when they look in a mirror?”
Besides themselves, Mitch McConnell and Justice Kavanaugh.
1
It speaks volumes about New Jersey that Menendez and Hugin are the best they can come up with, two complete lowlifes. Treated to their ad blizzards every day, it's clear this one's going to be a squeaker because those disgusted by one will be precisely cancelled out by those disgusted with the other.
1
i ask my conservative friends what their party believes in, and in the end, the only answer i get is to stand up to liberals. it has become the troll party.
3
America has taught me a lot about human nature over the last two years. It has taught me that the average individual is ignorant, greedy, vindictive, and immoral. Hopefully, it will prove me wrong.
1
Went to see the captain, strangest I could find,
Laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels,
But I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools.
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools.
"Ship of Fools" --Robert C. Hunter
4
"Again I tell you, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a "Principled Republican" to enter the kingdom of God"...
Seeking Principled Republicans: Ideal applicant must believe in Loch Ness Monster and have experience Snipe hunting.
The Republican Party has not lost its way; it is exactly where it wants to be, at the pinnacle of power and the center of influence. It is poised to complete its mission, started long ago, of a reactionary remaking of our government and the dismantling of every progressive, and practical, common-sense advance made since the New Deal, that picked up speed with the rise of Ronald Reagan and the two-track agenda of gutting the government while transferring every cent of wealth to its donor/backers.
Despicable tactics are nothing new here, starting with Nixon's abhorrent racist Southern Strategy, the dog-whistle coded messages that have dogged our politics ever since, the embrace of the religious right and its authoritarian, totalitarian ethos as far from morality as we are from the Sun, devolving to the Goebbels-scale lies and dissembling that goes on every day. This is the pursuit of power by any means necessary, and if that means whoring themselves for our current president, so be it. Shining his shoes is but a trifling irritation on the way to the reactionary paradise they hope to create, and if they have to lick his shoes clean first, so be it.
They are selling us out to their donors, foreign enemies, and adversaries as they gut institutions that they once supported unequivocally. The only way forward is to vote them out; push back against their naked attempts at voter suppression and vote them out.
1
You’re looking for unicorns.
1
I look at Christian Fundamentalists and ask myself “Who do they see these days when they look in the mirror?”
Besides themselves, Mitch McConnell and Justice Kavanaugh.
1
There is nothing left to salvage in the Republican Party. All Trump did was to lay out for all to see the moral rot at the heart of the party, going back to Reagan.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16636401/republican-part...
If any other Republican had ended up in the White House, the only difference would be that the corruption wouldn't be so in-your-face blatant - but it would still be there.
Kevin Drum has no doubts about what must be done: GOPus delenda est.
"...Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons.
Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place...."
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/nos-victi-reipublicae/
1
This is an excellent piece by Mr. Kristof. The Republican Party has lost its way - they at me time stood for some good things to be sure, like a strong defense, fiscal responsibility, and a business friendly climate, but have also embraced some very bad ideals or swung to far, as articulated by Kristof. The problem is that the Democratic Party has also embraced the ethos of big money and identify politics - witness the public disparagement and trial without a jury of our latest Supreme Court nominee. Until big money is out of politics, I fear that we will be treated to more fractionalized politics by both parties.
1
It's clear by most of comments that the left doesn't get it. All I've read are hate filled screeds against any/all Repubs/conservatives: Nazi's, slave staters, KKK, totalitarian, owned by the Kochs, etc
Sorry folks, that's not going to win votes. The left appears to have degenerated to the party of name calling and worse. And that predates Trump.
If I were the deranged left (which appears to be a big inclusive tent) I'd shed the idea Republicans are evil. Someone isn't evil because they disagree with your policy positions. But even if you really think they are evil, I'd keep quiet. America is not turning fascist, but it certainly won't turn democrat if you that keep up.
Then I'd put together some policy position beyond elect me because I'm (pick one or more) female, Black, Hispanic, multi-gendered, gay, an illegal immigrant. And I'd explain how your social policies can be paid for. Then I'd prepare for things like -- ok, most of the left's social engineering programs don't appear to work. How do you plan to address critical social issues, like the permanent underclass, or having jobs but not enough people with the skills.
Then I'd try to craft better arguments for key dem agenda items like fighting climate change. You know, how if we are 5% of the world's population (and shrinking) can we have much of an impact, why not push for nuclear power instead of wind and solar, etc.
But keep calling names if it makes you feel better. You'll probably take CA.
86
@Ralphie Projection once again from the right. Once again, happy to point out faults on the left, while stunningly blind to what the extreme on the right are doing and saying. The lack of insight and introspection here (from some otherwise intelligent and functioning people) is truly remarkable.
5
If the world does not reduce the use of coal by 45% by 2030, the consequences will begin to undo our human world by 2040. Republicans call it bunk without any inclination to prove their assertion. Republicans passed a tax cut that will produce a trillion dollars in national debt but they assert despite all previous history with tax cutting claim that this will transform the economy to benefit all. These are two reasons why this country can no longer afford Republican leadership. Republicans refuse to accept what is real when it displeases them.
6
@Ralphie
I definitely agree that vilifying the opposition is no way to build consensus.
However, your notes about climate change show why we have had such trouble discussing issues...it's been well-known for a very long time that Americans -- despite the fact we are a small portion of the world's population -- are primary contributors to the problem because of our lifestyle choices. Think SUVs and Big Macs. No other country has such great abundance of these items, and this is precisely the problem.
And despite conservative pushback at the federal level, California is almost 20% powered by wind and solar, and that number ticks up every day. We'll have no need for nuclear, coal, or perhaps even natural gas here in a decade or so.
I am myself a former registered Republican, and debating energy policy with Republicans over the years -- including my father who is a nuclear engineer -- led me to believe that we could almost never debate in good faith.
The only potential bridge I've seen is Republicans who still believe in science and math, who can look at the potential of cleaner technologies objectively and see their long-term value. The company First Solar -- an Arizona company largely funded by Republicans -- may be a good example of this.
Perhaps that's your point, that we need to find common ground somewhere. I sincerely hope we continue to do so!
2
Mr. Kristof, I admire your perseverance. I gave up looking for principled Republicans decades ago.
1
We could use a few principled Republicans to propose a Marshall Plan for central America, thereby defusing the immigration issue, and lifting millions out of poverty.
2
I'm an English teacher, and am always on the lookout for new oxymorons to share with my students. And now Mr. Kristof has just given me one: "Principled Republicans." Hah.
3
The headline expresses an oxymoron. There is no such thing as a principled Republican today. The subheadline says it all (the party has lost it's way and it's time to start over).
2
No, there is no such thing as a good Republican in this time of corporate greed, Trump, and McConnell. They are building another country as they destroy ours, a powerful land of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%.
Hugh
3
What we are desperately seeking is a media that doesn't try to control political belief. Another thing we need is an end to liberal tribalism or collective effervescence. They resemble the emotional maturity of the Salem Witch Hunt. Until the liberals discontinue attempting to villainize the right instead of acknowledging different political positions - they are doomed.
“It [the Republican Party] must pay a heavy price for its embrace of white nationalism and know-nothingism,” “the party of corruption, propaganda, vote suppression, and barely masked bigotry.”
Well, those thoughts seem to raise a belief that the present billionaire backers of the GOP, who use the politics of blatant propaganda and brainwashing, are going to have an enlightening flash of conscience [ha ha] or be replaced by a more sensible set of wise wealthies [still Oligarchs, but a better bunch].
Unlikely. The supine vassals of totalitarianism will continue, and their masters, while iniquitous, are clever and far-sighted. Something their supine minions do not aspire to.
2
Earlier today I wrote one of my usual comments and I started to cry. Most of us really need a break and it has been a painful year.
I started to cry when I read what I had written.
In August the Saudis declared war on Canada because of our ethics and values. When Canada needed you most you weren't there.
The world needs you now and you won't come to the phone.
3
we were too busy trying to force our milk on you and punishing your steel and aluminum Industries. How's that for being your best friend?
1
Where were all these right-wing critics when there was something left to save? The Republican faults they criticize have been predominant for decades. Vote suppression? Barely masked bigotry? Phony concern over the deficit? Does anyone remember a time when these weren't Republican standards? The only difference now is that the facade is harder to maintain when the leader is so clearly feckless. In his defense, Max Boot agrees and admits that he was willfully blind for years to obvious Republican duplicity. It's way too late to see any of these folks as principled heroes, but they're welcome to help kindle the flames, burn down their putrid party, and shovel the cremated remains into the legendary ash heap of history. It can't happen soon enough.
3
I agree. But this is exactly why I've grown deeply disenchanted with the Democratic party, too. Party leaders struggle to identify what we stand for; more and more, it feels like both parties are simply simply pointing at the other and defining themselves as, "Not them."
I mentioned to someone during the Kavanaugh hearings that if I thought Lindsey Graham actually cared about the matter at hand, I'd actually have respected the heck out of him for taking a bold, public stand and denouncing something he saw as corrupt. That's what America was literally founded on. I don't agree, but I don't begrudge anyone their right to do it.
But we all spent two years watching him flip-flop like a salmon heading upstream. We all know it was dinner theater on Capitol Hill, and it's been going on for over a decade. The politicians staunchly espousing things you hate almost certainly don't care much, either way. This isn't about Trump, either.
They've been treating Congress like a reality TV show since the 1970s, when they realized that televising what happened on the senate floor allowed them to grandstand in your living room.
They didn't come here to make friends; they came to win! You're the judges, and they'll do whatever it takes to not get eliminated. You want Elmo on our currency? They've been saying that for years! You want the CIA to investigate the veracity of the moon landing? They will put the pressure on right this minute! Voting starts in two weeks.
The last principled Republican, or someone who convinced the pundits that he/she was one, left the building during the Bush Administration when the party united to protect Bush and the war criminals from meaningful investigations into the failures that led to 9/11, the lies that started the Iraq War and the war crimes of Abiu Gharab and Gitmo. And anything resembling principles was blown up and the ashes burned by 8 years of obstruction led by the single most malignant force in American politics, Mitch McConnell. The Republican Party must be destroyed and it's ashes spread to the four winds. Then a new center right party can arise led by people who have NO involvement and have never had any involvement with what is now a party of Trump, a cult of personality and nothing more.
2
I think that species went extinct. I think I read there was on living breeding couple left, but the male was seen entering a Trump golf course, but never came out again.
3
The republican party is corrupt. Is it ideology or money or something else?
Unfortunately there is not enough time to figure that out. But I believe that, in the aftermath, and the forensic analysis that follows, there will be opportunities to identify republicans who supported democracy.
They may not have spoken up when they should have, or were too uninformed to realize what was happening, but whether they survive politically will be up to the voters. Hopefully informed voters.
The other ones? The thieves, sycophants, the glassy-eyed zealots, the enemies of truth and bipartisanship?
They, and the entities that supported them, should be held accountable in a way that leaves no doubt, to anyone, that they are not welcome in a free society based on the rule of law.
It is appropriate that an image of Mitch McConnell is included with this column.
I cannot imagine a better reason for the dissolution of the republican party as it is currently constituted.
3
In today's world principled republican is truly an oxymoron. I know a number of these sorts and what amazes me is the cruelness under the guise of their strong Christian faith and the stature in the community. They used to mask their hatred but it seems more overt now. Bottom line, they don't like people who aren't like them. Jesus taught tolerance and these people want nothing to do with those teachings. To me much of this started in the late 60's with Vietnam and Nixon. Silent majority, moral majority, etc. We are right and you are wrong. It's gained steam over the years and is now manifested in this current crop of hate filled republican leaders. Took a long time to morph into this, will most likely take a long time to correct itself.
1
“Where is My Party?” That’s run through my head for at least the past 20 years. Progressive/liberal on domestic issues, fiscal issues, I turn conservative, bordering on very conservative, on many international issues. But forget the much touted “middle ground”-on nearly any issue. Not purple, but more like a baton with one end red, the other blue.
Example; against The Wall, strongly against the cruelty of child separation at the border, but watching the caravan, sorry, but putting the military on the border is about national integrity and may be necessary.
Example; the concentrated power of our large corporations, and now billionaire citizens has invaded politics, health care and just lately (again) the food safety. When one food supplier threatens one product shipped to....what....27 states- it’s time to break them up. When did we stop processing food, slaughtering animals in several locations in each state? And that’s just one part of our agricultural system that’s now reminiscent of a cotton economy that lead to war.
It’s more than nuance, more than differences that can be....compromised, ironed out. How do you compromise on taking children from their parents, on allowing assault weapons in every home? On foreign aid to Pakistan, peace talks with the Taliban- those that aligned against us, and still are.
1
Born into a Republican family. Became a Democrat upon entering college. Voted Democratic ever since JFK ran. Most friends are liberal. But, about a half-dozen are conservative. Every one of them is a nice, kind, bright person. Yet, they each think everything Trump says is the truth & anything 'Liberal' is made up by George Soros or someone equally evil. We do not discuss politics - but do post our views on Facebook - I believe Ford - they believe Kavanaugh - and so it goes.
1
Trump should be investigated for his bizzare conduct and statements following the apparent murder of a saudi journalist at saudi arabia’s consulate in istanbul, in the most barbaric fashion, under orders from the highest levels of the ruling saudi royal family. Trump, who makes the wildest accusations and comments on tweets and in public speeches has done the opposite here, spinning a fairy tale to cover up the saudis, and he has not stopped since. It appears that trump has shady business deals with the saudi royal family and is trying to protect his ill gotten gains from it. He has already done severe damage to US credibility in the middle east, and in the eyes of an international community that is outraged by an act of extreme violation of human rights and sovereignity of another nation turkey, a US and NATO ally, by the saudi rulers
1
Nick,
There is no inconsistency. Republicans are about power. Getting it, keeping it, wielding it, by ANY means necessary. They will say anything, do anything, sacrifice anything for it. Just watch how Orrin Hatch has flip-flopped 180 degrees throughout his years in the Senate. And he ALWAYS pretends he's taking the high, moral ground.
Witness the attacks on Bob Menendez. Why is HE "guilty" when he wasn't "proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" when Brett Kavanaugh and MBS are defended for being called "guilty (by Dems) until proven innocent"? Isn't the flip-flop and hypocrisy obvious? A hung jury means Menendez was NOT "proven guilty", period. Therefore he is STILL entitled to the presumption of innocence that Republicans and Trump demand for Kavanaugh and MBS.
They always move the goal posts further for Democrats and close for Republicans. That's what "Principled Republicans" has become a total oxymoron.
1
“Desperately seeking principled Republicans”?
Well, the desperation is understandable. Because the GOP is bought and paid for by a few balmy billionaires, maybe a way to do this is to try to find some “principled” billionaires to replace the nuts? To be successful, they’ll have to fund an even more remarkable propaganda machine with its own talk radio, captive web sites, TV stations, social media, and a foxier Fox News.
3
It would be best for this country if both parties cease to exist. After all, we no longer have Whigs or Know-Nothings. Very few good people go into politics. GOP? Thomas Kean? Dems? Ocasio-Cortez? Doug Jones? We would be better off with Labor, Green, Progressive. The people who call themselves Conservatives are the most dangerous radicals. I won't miss them when their party no longer exists.
What terrifies me the most is that in addition to now controlling all three branches of government (bearing in mind that neither party was ever intended to control the supreme judiciary), the GOP can now theoretically steal elections across the country while playing completely innocent. "Who, us?"
Through decades of gerrymandering, shameful voter suppression tactics, control of states where there is no paper trail for votes, and God-knows-what collaborations with foreign actors, we really have no idea which elections of all the hundreds that are about to take place 2 weeks from now will even be clean.
The GOP is evil in my book. Simply evil. It has lost all allegiance to true democracy. It only cares about power and money, not people. Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and frankly, even Nixon, might be horrified. After all, even Nixon recognized that we the citizens of the U.S. needed environmental protection, and created the EPA. Imagine defending Nixon as a "good" Republican. This is what we have come to.
4
Seeking principled Republicans?
A futile endeavor, at least for now.
The Party has found the path to power and it does not run through principle.
Democracy and the rule of law didn't work for them, so they chose the law of the jungle, and that is working far too well for them to bother with anything as "politically correct" as principle.
3
Just as the Ebola virus should go extinct to save humanity and our planet, Republicans should go extinct too and replaced with an accountable and truly democratic conservative party. The GOP is irredeemably toxic to the united American way of life.
"The principled version of the Republican Party" has not existed since before Gingrich, when Nixon seems like a moderate and truth-teller compared to today's GOP. Even W's notion of "compassionate conservatism" and Reagans's trickle down nonsense are frauds perpetrated to their gullible tribe no more real or credible than unicorns. Republican leaders in Congress are nothing more than trump's consiglieri against American citizens.
We have an unprincipled, irresponsible and anti-democratic colluders with Russia Republican caucus as a single unchecked - unchecked even by voters - in Congress. What could go wrong? We're seeing it in real-time.
"[Their] most odious pirouette" to destroy America and the environment at a planetary scale for profit is proof of this.
The de facto party of trump is a tribe of one, looking to vanquish all other tribes, including Native American tribes, that make up our nation. How is it possible for them to gain dictatorial power of all branches of government with a minority of votes?
1
What if Republicans aren't wolves so much as founding members of a new Axis of Evil - along with Castro, Salemon, Kim Jung-un, Rodrigo Duterte, and of course, Putin?
They are a political group that proudly elected (or helped elect with gerrymandering and Putin) a failed real estate personality who does selfies with any and every gruesome despot on the planet who promise him a teen pageant and a golf course -- I'm not sure what nation they support, but it's certainly not the USA.
4
The US supreme court, which has become another tentacle of Trump’s power is also to blame for it’s citizen’s united ruling. Trump, who not long ago claimed he was an outsider and took no political contributions, an obviously false claim since he is the most brazenly corrupt politician and individual anybody remembers, now has 100 million for his 2020 presidential run.
2
Mitch McConnell hits for the cycle on his home field, shafting his own constituents while further enriching millionaires, billionaires and record profit corporate interests:
1. No increase in minimum wage.
2. No infrastructure jobs.
3. No strengthening of Social Security.
4. No strengthening of Medicare.
With any luck he gets one more at bat to finish off Public Terrorist No. 1, affordable health insurance.
2
Firstly, I am not sure why comments could not be posted to it, but wanted to say I found the prior column of Mr. Kristof ("More Insulting Lies from Saudi Arabia") to be compelling, and found it positive that his recommendations were closely matched in the Times' own op-ed the same day.
As to:
"When a political party stands for nothing larger than itself, it is time to rebuild it — and that requires voters first to engage in demolition,"
I quite agree, but the depiction is nonetheless incomplete. This can sensed by considering why there has thus far been such ineffective opposition to the Trumpian GOP.
Part of the explanation doubtless is this counterpart to GOP failure:
As the Republican establishment has abandoned principles, so has the Democratic establishment lost backbones and fighting skills. With the GOP fighting to win, and Democrats fighting to feel righteous about losing, it is not hard to see why one team has had the upper hand, at least absent major catastrophes clearly and severely impacting voters directly.
With enough disasters, the GOP might eventually demolish and rebuild itself, but why should its supposed opposition get a free pass on helping with the so far all-but non-existent demolition?
By all means let GOP demolition be the top priority in the upcoming elections, but thereafter the missing half of the remedy must be added:
"When a political party fights effectively for nothing but itself, it is time to rebuild it by first demolishing it."
Here are the principles of today's Republican party:
1. The end justifies the means 2. Do anything to help the cause that you can get away with 3. Everyone tell the same lie. 4. Never pass up an opportunity to appeal to the worst aspects of people, especially fear and hate. 5. Do what the donors tell you to do
3
If I were a miscreant, recruiting some more of my kind for what I am up to, I would demonstrate new recruits, what I am capable of, to scare them into discipline. The Kashoggi murder, especially for its well published barbarity, would perfectly fit that intent. And it is not your president, calling the shots. He is the one, who seemingly can't be stopped demonstrating his submission: Kashoggi, Helsinki. For anyone with self respect, cringy to the max.
The disappearance of principled Republicans, seemingly in no time, happens at the same time, when autocrats around (your new friends) are eager to demonstrate their brutality and contempt for civility, add Litvinenko, Salisbury.
These events are public and brutal by design. They serve a purpose, and your Republicans seem intent to show, it works just fine, their lack of a spine.
3
At the start of Obama's presidency McConnell stated that the objective of the Republican Party was to prevent a second term of the first black president . The GOP has never espoused the belief of acting in the best interests of the country and the people who elected them. They are truly a disgrace to the party or what it once was, and their performance under Trump has only gone from bad to worse.
5
It appears democracy has been wasted on the Republicans. The worship of one of the sleaziest media fixtures of modern times in no way resembles the democratic process. The GOP has failed us and themselves miserably!
1
What’s that old quote about power? Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I am an independent voter and will always remain one. I find that political parties are the problem. Get on their mailing lists, read their emails to the converted. Both sides departed from reality long ago.
The selfishness exhibited by leaders from each side is utterly appalling. When the power condenses around one party, it gets perverse - power for power’s sake and group think run amok.
I used to vote rather often for balance in my state, and I will still vote for my Republican governor, but frankly I will not vote on a congressional, senatorial, or presidential level for a Republican until the current crop of demented old white q-tips are out (and we have some liberal ones in MA, too). Democrats need to learn what is truly important and fight for it like it matters, because it does.
2
We actually have no idea what type of parties this country needs because of the corrupting effect of money. If the spigot was suddenly turned off, and both parties were suddenly reliant on just small donors or federal funding, they would have to scramble frantically to discover what they really believed in. McConnell and Schumer are both where they are because they are corporate lickspittles, with little conviction. If the money dried up, so would they.
2
You have written, "Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the party, but as a national institution the Republican Party is hollow. It is no longer about an ideology; it’s about shining President Trump’s shoes. And that is the fundamental issue hanging over the midterm elections." Exactly. That's the crux of the matter.
To all those Republicans who accept this devious and destructive "leadership," shame on you thrice over. You are watching our country go sour and you don't care.
This President is already tearing apart your futures and you stand by like split wood.
Perhaps the Democrats can lead the way back on November 6. I certainly hope so!
2
They stand for deregulation, Mr.Kristof. They are quite successfully rolling back all kinds of regulations. And if you question conservatives they will agree this is the bright spot to this current administration. Tax cuts, deregulation, first, then an end to Medicaid and SS. It seems to me that they are standing by their principles. They don’t care that they are called bigots and misogynists, nor do they care about our environment or our children or if millions of people are thrown further into poverty by the dissolution of entitlements (they aren’t entitlements, we have been paying into them our entire adult lives). This is the party of the rich and the white, and mostly male. They are ruining our world as we know it, but they aren’t stupid. Their plans are working. They may appear inept and ridiculous but our future is in their hands and it looks mighty bleak. I’d spend more time confronting conservatives about their obsession with tiny government. Mr. Boot has become a hero of mine for his outspoken criticism of the Republicans, but what about the actual work of shrinking government: Trump is doing that. Quite successfully.
140
Countries where some are dominant and live well while the rest are kept down to keep the former on top, are tyrannical and everyone is unfree. A lot of reactionaries in the Republican Party are pressing that Party towards policies that will produce a nasty society where personal power and ruthlessness determines how much freedom anyone can enjoy. This is the result of growing inequities of wealth and power that takes more and more of the new wealth from access by society and a greater and greater proportion of the people.
2
It might be time to tear down and rebuild the Republican party, except that would leave a party in control that is in a much worse state and whose most recent antics demonstrate their craven and boundless lust for political control. It now seems that the 2016 election presented not only two ridiculous candidates, but two candidates that embody what is wrong with American political parties. Voters just might care about the obvious flaws in Trump or any other office holder, if the alternative were better. As it stands now, if we are going to raze a party to improve our choices and governance, the I prefer the Democrats go first. Then again, most Democrats can't admit that their side is corrupt, dishonest and hypocritical, let alone as corrupt, dishonest, and hypocritical as the other party. But they are.
23
@TD
There is no democracy in a nation where any person is above the law. And the GOP doesn’t yet dare say outright what leader Donald Trump already has: That only their party should have political rights, and only their political enemies should be prosecuted by the Justice Department, but when you follow their actions it is plain that they will use the Constitution for toilet paper, while waving a flag that will no longer stand for the idea that was "America".
That's the important difference between the parties.
2
@TD, I think you are mistaken. How many of Trump's Cabinet Secretaries have been fired or resigned due to corruption ? How about the Emoluments clause abuse? How about nepotism and cronyism ? How about Flynn, Gates and Paul M. ? And the abounding all encompassing mendacity of the President ? And on and on. C'mon !
3
@TD
Most Democrats wanted Bernie in the last election and they have not forgotten how the DNC stabbed him in the back. It’s not the “Democrats” who are the problem, it is the conservative cabal of corporate loving hypocrites that run the DNC that is the problem and it will take the people a few election cycles to get rid of them. I hope the country will last that long.
Excellent article. Yes, we need Republicans that are gentlemen with integrity and character who are true patriots of this country, not third-world exploiters looking for their own easy profits for personal advantage. As a Democrat, I was considering McCain until he chose Sarah Palin. We need Democrats that are well-educated and knowledgeable, regardless of gender. A college education does not guarantee knowledge, class, or respectability, not even from Yale.
1
The biggest paradox is that a party so bereft of values keeps winning and controls virtually all the levers of power in our country. By all accounts, this party has the allegiance of no more than 40% of the people. How does all this square with our country's claim to be a democracy? And yes I know we are a republic but this indicates a flaw in our system.
5
The flaw is that, at every level of our federal government, we are ruled by a minority of US citizens. This is also true for many state governments.
A minority of citizens voted for President Trump. A minority of citizens elected the majority of US senators, and a minority elected the majority of US representatives.
The problem of minority rule traces back to the Apportionment Act of 1911, which capped the number of representatives at 435. The gerrymandering of congressional districts and the widespread voter suppression that Republicans have undertaken have accelerated the problem and further embedded it into the structure of our government.
When George W. Bush was president, Carl Rove spoke of creating a structural and permanent Republican ruling “majority.” This plan has succeeded. The GOP has chosen ideology over democracy.
4
If you find one, a principled Republican, please notify the medical community as those left in the party are desperately in need of a transfusion.
Seriously though, all of the principled Republicans I know have left the party over the last 10 years or so purposefully so that they may continue to live with a clean and clear political soul.
1
The Republican Party, though it has been ascendant for decades to the point that for the last two years it has controlled the entirety of federal government and holds vast power in state governments, actually has been going out of business during all that time.
We are now, with Trump and McConnell and the general gangsterism of Republican voter suppression, SCOTUS revanchism and the like -- are now witnessing the final convulsions of this once vital political institution.
The Democrats as well are going through a time of upheaval. From contention between their center and their so-called progressive wing (I call it the Trotskyite wing, witness Bernie Sanders, an old Trotskyite if every there was one) -- out of their tug of war is coming a strengthened party reflective of contemporary demographics.
There is and has been and will be, for perhaps another decade or two, taking place in American politics a realignment comparable to that of the 1840s and 1850s, the upheaval that produced a Republican Party for free soil, free trade and free opportunity.
Parts of both parties may realign to create a new one as the GOP disappears, but it will be the lesser of the two parties in a federal system that still allows but two major parties and in which the Democrats will emerge as the more powerful for decades.
4
The Republicans we must remember have opposed every piece of legislation aimed at helping regular folks since the New Deal in the name of opposing "big government".
For over 100 years, the Republican Party has been the haven of the super-rich - those espousing tax cuts for the affluent and no regulations whatsoever on business, in an attempt to exploit both the worker and the consumer to maximize profits. In the 1960s these Republicans began incorporating disaffected southern Democrats - those who worked day and night to oppose the civil rights movement while reacting against anything that challenged the dominant white, male, rural culture. Nixon, Reagan and Gingrich brought these two factions together, and Fox and talk-radio and now Trump have solidified the alliance and convinced millions of the ill-informed that their interests are somehow served by the Republicans. Through gerrymandering, Citizens United, misinformation, and the Electoral College, this minority of 40-45% has achieved political control of the country. Trump is but one of the final phases of this conservative ascendancy.
Hopefully disaffected Republicans will be along for the ride, but It's getting late and the majority who opposed the Republican agenda had better get out there and vote.
9
Mr. Kristof seems to have forgotten that the GOP has been unprincipled since the Progressive Era. The post World War II Red Scare, McCarthyism, the Southern Strategy, these were all Republican initiatives. Has he forgotten that Republicans supported Richard Nixon, despite overwhelming evidence of wrong doing until the bitter end? What about Willie Horton and the Bush lobbying for Brett Kavanaugh?
Then there is the Koch Brothers network which has been waging a fifty plus year campaign to protect wealth and privilege by undermining majority politics through both legislation and court packing. What's the principled nature of that? Unethical types like detestable Mitch McConnell aren't an aberration they are the logical result of decades of Republican political and social engineering.
I usually don't agree with Max Boot on anything, but when he says the GOP has to be destroyed and completely re-cast he's spot on.
12
When George Will bowed out of covering the nominees for the last Presidential Elections, I went on high alert. He left fairly early; it not like him to throw in the towel, and he is not into polishing shoes, or chewing-gum.
Mr. Kristof, the word 'desperately' is jangling, and one of the first lessons taught when it comes to the dirty game of politics is there is no such thing as an honest politician.
We are beyond politics now, and in quiet search of principled Americans, who do not recognize this president and his G.O.P.
David Brooks ventured that the formation of a third Party might be a consideration, a matter to be deliberated; but we have run out of time now, and looking into the face of a dictator, which both Parties and the Press are abetting.
Perhaps you have noticed that Pence is low-profile these days, the Middle-Class is fading, and before we can start over again, we have a dragon to conquer like St. George who put out his fire, furor and flame.
Those of us who go about our business in conformity with our nature will continue, but there are some power horses in our midst who may be threatened in some way.
Nobody is coming to save us; some of us do not feel the need to be saved and it is a matter perhaps of saving ourselves.
The majority of us will vote, keeping in mind that this may be the last time Americans are able to cast their choice for a real and honest President.
3
Money, money, money. Follow the money. Every one of these unprincipled politicians are beholden to their benefactors, be they corporate or individual. That little club consists of all Republicans and near half the Democrats. Unless and until we go to solely publicly financed campaigns, establish term limits, and outlaw lobbyist work for some meaningful period of time post-government service, nothing will change. Nothing.
6
The elite left wing? Who? College educated and post grad people? We certainly are not the moneyed. They are the Weyerhauser gazillionaires and such. Glad you can overlook "W"'s war of choice if it comes along with two or three legislative decisions that weren't murderous.
Yes, we need a moderating political party to offset "Craaaazy" leftwinger idea--eventually. But the pendulum is now in Nazi territory. I will be willing to listen to Sullivan and his stupid tribe when it gets back into what I will call neutral political territory.
3
Searching for principled Republicans today is as vain an effort as seeking a virgin in a brothel of long-experienced sex workers.
9
What about Benjamin Netanyahu, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin and Mohammad bin Salman?
They seem to be principled Republicans according to Donald Trump.
6
@Blackmamba, perhaps it takes a dark (maligned) person like Trump to bring other dark personalities, to the "light". By engaging with them, Trump is actually raising everyone's awareness and wakening us up, that we can no longer keep quiet about these personalities.
1
Is there anyone left in the Republican Party who isn't a made-stooge of the Koch Kabal?
12
Donald J. Trump: sociopath devoid of empathy, refractory liar, sex offender, racist, stunningly ignorant Bozo. And demagogue, would-be tyrant, and quite possibly controlled by Vladimir Putin. Can a more unfit President possibly imagined? Yet the party of Lincoln has virtually completely surrendered to him.
Anything less than a massive repudiation next month, strong enough to swamp the inherent Republican advantage in our system, and the Party’s abhorrent voter suppression efforts, will truly leave America at deadly risk.
13
They're not Republicans at all.
They are Neo-Confederates, White Slave State Conservatives, STILL fighting the Civil War, now known as the Culture War.
They're still offended that the Northern States defeated the Slave State Confederates on the battlefield, and they continue to try to promote a racist and fascist agenda in the 21st century.
Southern White Conservatives cannot help being racist, just ask Strom Thurmond...
a
3
Bye Corker.
Bye Flake.
Bye Sanford.
Bye Ryan.
Bye, Bye. Bye. #NeverTrump
Long live #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
12 More Years!!
2
@whoiskevinjones
I disagree. I believe that moderates like Corker and Flake will....
Wait a minute! Hold on here. Is that you Sean? Is this Sean Hannity?
2
I have to disagree that Republicans are Trump’s poodles and exist to shine his shoes. Rather, it is the other way around. He is their useful idiot and they have used an extraordinary psychological trick to get him to do what they want: flattery. They allow him to make the world over in his image, knowing that he births shiny objects right and left that will take the focus off of their evil deeds.
13
You will never find one. Republican equals one (or more) of three characters:
1: Greedy
2: Stupid
3: Ignorant
That covers it.
6
To stick to their principles in this election, principled Republicans should either vote straight Democrat or stay home. They have no place in what the current Republican office holders have become or enabled.
1
You should have seen this coming after Trump announced his candidacy. Trump survived gaff after gaff after gaff that would have done in any other Republican candidate because Republican voters wanted Trump so badly they let him off the hook again and again, and in so doing made one compromise after another. How does the party of free trade become the party of trade wars? Because they wanted Trump. And so the compromises became bigger and bigger until now, as you write, they are Trump's poodles. Trump now has what every would-be dictator wants, a political party that enforces his will. I fear that if the blue wave does not materialize on election day--or worse, if Republicans make GAINS in the midterms--Republicans will not learn their lesson and things will only get worse.
2
What bothers me the most is just thinking about the radioactive, post Trump, meltdown years.
How many decades will it take until this catastrophe gets turned around and we get back to some semblance of normalcy? Or if that will ever even happen?
I'm afraid it will be long after most of us who are reading and commenting here are dead. Our children and grandchildren will have to live in the fall out of this nuclear presidency.
2
President Trump is a singular political phenomenon to whom the Republicans have sold their souls in order to achieve political goals that would be sought by any party, such as an ideological lock on the Supreme Court possibly for decades, and a complete reordering of U.S. foreign and trade policy. If the Democrats had been gifted with a left-wing demagogue that had the same ability to channel the electorate's feelings as Trump did in 2016, you don't think they would happily follow that person off the cliff from time to time to achieve the same goals? Principles aren't worth a thing if you don't win.
1
The opposite is also true: Republicans need Democratic competition to remain a vibrant party, tied to the needs and lives of their constituents. But Gerrymandering and voter suppression has so distorted politics at the local level in so many places, with so many districts contorted to be safely red, that an R's only fear is the primary. So we get rafts of elected officials who veer further and further to the right and who are encouraged to hew only to the radical right wing of the party. They are like lemmings without an apex predator, heading (hopefully) for a cliff.
1
There are no more republicans;The only Good Republican I can think of was George Romney. Republicans are nothing more than Koch operatives.Like Scott Walker & Brett Kavanaugh, who were schooled in one of the many falsely named Koch institutes to serve the wealthy to ensure the free market that iunfettered by safety&health protecting regulations;The Republican Party is either Koch owned or trump enamored, two non-choices for American Democracy;the Kochs have a generational hate of Democracy & all the social programs that were developed after WWII;the Kochs have hated Democracy since the Income Tax was passed & hated it even more when Social Security was enacted;they hate any tax because they believe it's a distribution of their wealth;their enormous wealth was inherited,they worked against their own brothers who didn't agree with them,trying to cut them out of the will;their father worked for Stalin drilling oil in Russia;he liked Stalin's way of neglecting or imprisoning people in need;since the 1970s the Kochs&the heirs to many fortunes including fretted about the erosion of their wealth;they established foundations to train right wing thinkers&that's why as a group the GOP votes as a bloc,denies climate change from fossil fuel because as recipients of the Kochs "donations"&elections they are bound to fall in line;the Kochs were enraged they had to pay a small tax to help the poor under the ACA;enormous greed,arrogance&wealth is how the Kochs control the GOP.
10
When have principles ever helped anybody win in politics? Republicans like to win. Principles get in the way. Ergo, no more principled Republicans.
1
"It is no longer about an ideology; it’s about shining President Trump’s shoes." - It's not Trump, but the shoes of their wealthy donors that Republicans lick clean.
4
Unfortunately, Nick has missed the point of the past fifty years. This whole drift in the Republican Party, seemingly towards insanity, has been a conscious shift towards authoritarianism. The choice is not between big D Democrat and Republican; it is small d democracy and authoritarianism.
Max Boot said when he was a young neocon apparachik, he interviewed with the Wall Street Journal Editorial page editor who wanted him to write articles opining favorably on supply side economics. Told that economics was not his strength, the editor told him that he was fine with that. Turns out that there was a reason for that: reputable economists thought that supply side economics was (and still is) garbage; pure propaganda.
But the lies go hand in hand with the gerrymandering, the voter suppression, and the Merrick Garland episode among others. All are attempts to gain by force or deception that which could not be gained by consent.
Under Trump, the Republicans will attempt to nullify the rule of law; if necessary, via a Constitutional Convention, and do not think that they cannot do it. Once that is done, you are living in Russia. Get used to it.
2
What makes Nicholas Kristof think today's corrupt, effete Republican Party leadership has the slightest interest in reform (let alone self-reform)? Or that it will allow itself to be corrected? Or replaced?
McConnell and Graham, to name just two, behave like princelings serving kings; as if futures elections won't matter. Why is that? Because they actually believe that that most elusive of goals, a "permanent Republican majority", is within reach (through a combination of voter-radicalization, sectional tribalization, voter suppression where it matters most and gerrymandering), so what they do doesn't matter? Or is it more sinister? Because they know something we don't? Is it because they don't believe many more "free-&-fair" elections will be held?
These politicians represent the interests, present and future, of the wealthiest people on the planet; not just here. Through lobbyists their party accepts laundered ("bundled") money from foreign interests although it's technically illegal. So the Party's supporters and beneficiaries are everywhere wealth and power are concentrated. Why does Kristof believe that any of those people have the slightest interest in preserving an efficiently functioning two-party check-&-balance political system here in the United States? Or that they are willing to lessen (let alone relinquish) their virtual stranglehold on policymaking, and Congress, and -- through their Man In The Oval Office -- our executive branch? Naivete aside.
1
Mr. Kristof, you lost me with "there are still many principled individuals within the [Republican] party."
If that were true they would have gotten national attention by coming forward to condemn Donald Trump, condemn members of their party who are complicit in his degradation of our values, his attack on decency, his alienation of our allies, his embrace of fellow tyrants, perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
Who has come forward? McCain? Flake? Corker? Their criticism (if you could call it that) of Donald Trump was not full throated. Except for McCain's vote to protect the ACA, no Republican has called out Trump or members of their party.
When a political party abuses the US Constitution, tramples the traditions and values of the nation, then a principle person would refuse to enable those doing it. Flake, McCain, Corker could have changed their party affiliation. They could have declared they are Independents if not Democrats for the purpose of demanding the Republican Party do the right thing and hold Lying Donald Trump accountable.
No Republican has stepped forward. Flake and Corker decided to runaway, duck for cover. McCain could have and should have done more to save America because the survival of America is on the line.
A principled person would sacrifice his/her career for the country we love.
3
@jabarry
What's the definition of many? Three or four or five? I can't think of nay in the current Senate except maybe Murkowski. Principled Republicans are certainly a minority in the current version of that party unless you consider greed and racism to be principles.
1
"Unfortunately, the principled version of the Republican party in Congress has virtually collapsed...."
Fantasy editor's notes: Strike the word "virtually"...... The title of the column is absurdly oxymoronic.
The face of the Republican party is now justifiably represented in the visages of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. Any hopes that they might be constrained by rational or civilized principles is illogical at best.
5
What the country needs (besides a good five cent cigar) is a party that stands for individual freedom, fiscal restraint, and limited government. That is not, never has been, and never will be the GOP or the Democrats. The answer is not to rebuild Tweedledummer to counteract Tweedledum, but to form a brand new party. The basis for it may well exist in the Libertarian party, if they can get out of the purity wars and concentrate on winning elections.
Today's GOP, and possibly today's Democratic party, need to go the way of the Whigs.
@mikecody
Please, the Libertarian Party? Give me a break.
You say the Republican Party has 'lost its way' and yet Republicans control the two elected branches of government and are probably in control for another generation of the unelected branch.
It is not the Republican Party that has lost its way. It is us.
A substantial number of us understand little of science, care nothing for facts and are happy being mindlessly arrayed behind a president who is a patent embarrassment to our republic.
The problem is not with the Republican Party, the problem is with those who vote Republican.
It's different. And MUCH harder to fix.
4
“A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life." John Stuart Mill
Jasper
4
I find myself asking two questions: When and how did this Party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt deteriorate to its present nadir? And why were we not paying attention as far back as twenty or thirty years ago? That's when it seems that this one-sided political paradigm insidiously began its work of destruction.
Right now, the GOP is irredeemable. There is no way Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and their sycophants will change. They are lost to their own amorality and their insatiable lust for power and money. Off-hand in the House, I look at that disgraceful weasel Representative Nunes as an example of his colleagues there. In the Senate, the examples are endless, right down to Senator Collins who sold her soul just a few weeks ago as far as I am concerned.
Trump and his dying Party are more than interdependent and dependent upon each other. They are mutually parasitic, eating off of each other's diseased characters. Yes, they are self-destructing. I agree with Nicholas Kristof. That is that the GOP can become what it use to be, but the players involved must be sent packing and replaced with a whole new ethical and moral team. They have reached rock bottom, and there is nowhere else to go but up....at least, that is the way I use to think. Now I am not so sure.
4
We need conservatives to balance our politics, not Republicans. Today's Republicans are NOT conservative.
Listen to the Times' new podcast, The Argument, to understand why. I have a lot of respect for Ross Douthat, a good writer with whom I often disagree. But Michelle Goldberg was right to call him out on his absurd opinion that Trump is not having an effect on the world order, simply because we have been very lucky that the Trump effect has not been tested yet. His argument was not conservative. A true conservative would seek to "conserve" our time-tested global institutions, not summarily dismantle our institutions, then throw everything against the wall to see what sticks.
I actually think Douthat could be one of those principled Republicans that Kristoff seeks, if only he could shed that last bit of Trumpist dogma that seems to stick to him.
"voters who back Trump partly because they see him as anti-elitist, "
It's not elitist, it's hypocrisy. The question is: Which candidate's hypocrisy touches on their experiences the most?
When I talk to my lower-middle class and middle-class white friends about their votes for Trump, "elitist" isn't a word the enters the conversation.
It's the fact that many liberal Democrats want to push their policies without having much, if any skin in the game.
Desegregate public (or even entire) school systems? Great but you won't see a lot of folks out in whiteopia having their kids take part on another grand failure. NYC is very liberal.
Housing vouchers or Section 8 housing? Will Kristoff or Krugman have a section 8 apartment complex next door to them? Or in the latter's case, anywhere near their floor?
The experiences these folks have gone through weigh heavily in their decisions.
When they see someone from Chappaqua or Vermont talking about how white folks need to change their attitudes they know the Democrat doing the talking will be nowhere near the upcoming chaos that will be caused by the liberal dream come true.
1
You sound like Diogenes, Mr. Kristof -- lighting that single lamp and looking for a honest man. Perhaps that lamp should have been fired up fifty years ago when we saw the path the Republican Party was taking under Mr. Nixon? I find it a bit rich that conservatives such as George Will and Max Boot are now shocked, shocked at finding the Republican Party a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, Inc. Don't they understand that the choices the GOP made decades ago to embrace the policies of division and mean-spiritedness would eventually result in someone like Trump taking over their party? They seemed to have no problem at all with those policies when they were being put forward back then. Now, they want the benefit of our doubt and our sympathy for the quandary they are in; they do not deserve it.
The first step in 'recovery' as any addict would testify, is to acknowledge that you have a serious problem and that you are powerless in the face of it. That hasn't happened yet with the Republican Party. In the parlance of recovery, Mr. Kristof, the GOP "hasn't hit bottom yet." And I, for one, am furious that they want US to pay the cost of their treatment.
I do not want to find a "principled Republican." I want to send them all to rehab for a loooooooooonnnnnnnng stay.
Starting on November 6, I hope that process can be started.
12
Nicholas, you are kidding, correct? You have the audacity to blame this solely on Republicans? Do you really believe that? If so, you really are in a bubble. It seems the whole political process is skewed. All politicians, Democrat and Republican seem to be doing their best to tear this country apart. Neither party seems to leave any room for compromise or understanding. When Obama was president, if you recall, he stated emphatically that he had a pen and a phone, and he could do whatever he liked. Trump seems to be the same. The only ones getting hurt are us, the citizenry. So, whether it be the NYT or the WSJ, etc, how about a little harmony. Why not, for a change, you ALL write about bringing the country together, rather than the divisiveness all sides are promoting, which is tearing us apart? Unfortunately this column and those of your fellow opinion writers, on both sides, does nothing to promote harmony and understanding. Rather both sides keep promoting discord. If you, our "fourth estate" are not using your "watchdog role" to protect us, the public, why do we need you?
@bsb Two sentences kinda invalidate your entire argument. "When Obama was president, if you recall, he stated emphatically that he had a pen and a phone, and he could do whatever he liked." No, I don't recall that. Most people don't. If somebody says something divisive and most people don't hear it, how is it divisive? How in any world in the entire universe could one equate such a statement with the bombast and lies that daily emanate from the current WH occupant? Yet, to balance Obama's "divisiveness" with the latter, all you got is: "Trump seems to be the same." Shorter version: "Obama really, really, really bad bad bad. Trump too." Yeah, sounds real balanced, don't it?
1
Oh come on. This is the kind of naivety that has relegated democrats to a diminutive status.
The guiding principle of the republican party is to take control by any means necessary. Despite every evidence that this is a party of fiscal liberals engaged in wealth transfer to the rich, and social conservatives who would bring back witch trials and American apartheid given their talibanic DNA, America believes otherwise. Then there is the streak of cruelty, where they plain derive pleasure from hurting those they do not like (or like to imprison them).
They want a theocracy that they control, and by golly, they are getting one.
We ignore their complete control of everything local, regional, and state with clever fear mongering and religion based dog whistles. They have managed very well to keep out and contain those they do not like from the areas they prefer to inhabit. All the white papers emerging from their think tanks have very little influence on reality.
Republicans are very true to principles defined by churches, AM radio, and FOX are the guiding principles. They have the largest constituencies on their side: disgruntled whites who want the greatness they enjoyed in the 1950s (I suspect they remember those days fondly). In pursuit of this principle, they are brilliant when it comes to destroying anyone or anything in their way.
How could they not succeed when the elite press suggests that what is actually occurring is an aberration - when it is not.
2
Principles repubs? There are none. What puzzles me is why the Dems don't use tRump's own mantra about "Kavanaugh and Caravans" against him. Surely some one is smart enough to use his own words to rile up support on their side as both of those issues, along with a myriad of others( tax cuts for the rich, abolishing Medicare, and SS, the blatant mistreatment of women, 1st amendment rights, emoluments and so on), would be enough to make voters actually think about who they are voting for. What also puzzles me is why people so routinely vote against their own best interests. Medicare recipients who vote republican on social issues need to start paying attention to their own social issues. Repubs use social issues as a cover for being destructive and helping the rich(and themselves) how do people not see this?
1
I continue to wonder what motivates Mitch McConnell. He seems to hate everyone, particularly those who are poor, elderly or ill, and all aspects of government, no matter how essential to society. I would like the NYTimes to publish an in-depth profile of this man. What dreadful events occurred in his life to make him devoid of compassion and empathy? What experiences or education makes him so focused on acquiring ... whatever it is that he wants ... money? power? .. at the expense of all others.
4
At least Mr. Kristof acknowledges that Democrats are equally hypocritical. The party's support for Robert Menendez is particularly egregious. The same folks who claim - without evidence - that Kavanaugh perjured himself were strangely accommodating of Clinton's perjury.
Whether it's Democrat or Republican, the question is not what's good for the country, it's what will get them elected or re-elected. That's a much better predictor of any Congressman's position on an issue than any other factor.
1
I’ve concluded that Republicans’ refusal to support public education was about creating a more uninformed and more easily manipulated electorate. There is no logical explanation for undereducated voters supporting Republicans than they simply do not understand or are being manipulated or both. Better public education will end the Republican Party.
10
Yet another laundry list of Republican hypocrisies and reversals misses the point again. The Republicans are hypocrites only if you hold them to their oaths to uphold the Constitution and to seek a more perfect Union. They left those oaths behind long ago.
Their actions are 100% consistent and predictable if you accept the obvious: they're at war with the United States. They are explicitly secessionist now, seeking openly to betray the Constitutions in letter and in spirit. They want to subvert equal justice, equal representation, and decades of legal precedents that frame the law and the culture in ways not to their liking. They want to undermine America's fiscal viability by looting it from within. They want to freeze social mobility and wreck the future for millions of Americans because as those lives unfold they will steer the country away from where the Right wants it to be.
Hypocrisy isn't an accident for them. It's a weapon. So are lying, disinformation, propaganda, bad faith, etc. And the endless astonishment at the obvious on the part of the Left, the Democrats, and this newspaper help the Republicans do it every day.
3
@Next Conservatism
I say let them secede to their Red states and see how long they survive in a second/third world economy. I'm tired of subsidizing them.
3
I suppose we have no choice but to keep speaking out. Like the thrush in the elderberry. We're still here. And we think this is wrong. Principled, decent people do not behave like this.
9
If you're searching for principled Republicans, you might want to pack more than just an sandwich for lunch. It could take a good long while, and you'll probably end up empty handed with a knot in your stomach that won't go away.
Without a doubt, John McCain was the last principled Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate. Olympia Snowe ran for the exits some years ago.
Maybe you can give Olympia a call in Maine? If she's not hiding out in a political fallout shelter, she might answer the phone.
5
I completely agree that the existing GOP must be burnt to the ground, but I expect that it will be the existing Dems that end up cinders first. Identity group political extremists will set fire to old school Pelosi-Schumer-Clinton power and corruption money bags, and we can only hope the fires in NY and ali can be seen in the Plains and South. Then lets rebuild it all, left and right.
Actually, the present GOP is a coalition of ideologues who have a very specific agenda. Of, course, as with any coalition, the various factions have their own issues, but there's plenty of overlap.
The right wing plutocrats led by the Koch bros, want to starve the federal government into submission to their power- so they can pollute the planet and enrich themselves at will.
The children of the confederacy, that now dominate southern red states and the entire GOP congress, have the same goal, but for other reasons, including revenge for the forced ending of Jim Crow.
The religious right wants a government that endorses their religious beliefs. It is doubtful that their allies actually want a federal government that enforces laws against abortion, but anything that shrinks the government role in education is cool. Vouchers are a start.
The low skill whites just want to feel superior to someone- other members of this coalition needn't give up much, besides their conscience to win their loyalty- except the right-wing plutocrats and corporate farmers that need cheap labor, including the south of the border migrants that Trump uses as his whipping boy and to whip up the enthusiasm of his cult.
And Trump just wants to aggrandize Trump. Coalition members who aren't part of his cult have to play along to get anything they want.
I agree that they all share a common reluctance for an open and democratic discussion of their genuine agenda.
231
@alan haigh
It is interesting that you notice Republican duplicity, which is real, but missed this week the documentation of three Dem Senate candidates or their campaigns admit that they are campaigning in red states with pro-Trump/Kavanaugh/ 2nd Amendment positions, which they will abandon after the election. A wink and a nod to the wise, right? They all play along to get what they want. We don't get better government because we only want to see the problems in the other party.
@TD Show me the source. I believe you must be referring to the Dem party supporting candidates who don't support the usual Dem platform, no secret plan to change positions after election. Yours would be the Fox New's invention to help Murdoch get what he and the Kochs want.
Anyone that believes the Dems are as duplicitous as the GOP have a great deal of tribal loyalty and is drunk on think- tank generated cool aid. My opinion of the GOP has never been as low as now- I may have disagreed with their opinions but at least they were willing to concede to facts and data, for the most part.
Now their's has become the most cynical game I've ever witnessed in a life-time of following politics. A very dangerous game, indeed.
1
What is the point of liberals saying that the Republican party must be reformed? Apparently the idea is to boost turnout among Democrats and Independents so that the next election does not go Republican's way (again). Of course by emphasizing the current dividing issues of race and other "social" matters, which were chosen by Republicans to take attention away from their economic policies and actions, the turnout among supporters of Trump and Republicans may also be boosted - and the partisan divide will be increased still more.
We'll see whether this strategy works next month. If Democrats do not get substantial majorities by 2020, in order to carry out reforms of the system which seem to be needed to preserve democracy, maybe they should think about reforming their own party along lines which could actually unite the majority. This could only be on economic issues. The small economic elite has been winning for the last 50 years by causing the others to divide on social issues.
It isn’t that rank-and-file Republicans and aligned Independents—44% to 46% of those eligible to vote—don’t know Trump and the leadership of the Republican Party are not corrupt. They aren’t deaf and blind. Rather, they perceive that Trump & Co. are no more corrupt than Democratic Party politicians.
Principles are not seen to be involved.
When Democrats held the Senate and House in Obama’s first two years they could have done away with the “carried interest” income-tax loophole, gaining 70 billion dollars a year from hedge-fund managers by taxing their paychecks at the same rates as regular income (versus at the much lower capital gains rates), but they didn’t do it. Obama prosecuted a record number of government “leakers”, but not a single investment banker responsible for the mortgage-backed securities fraud. Nor did Obama prosecute anyone in the CIA for torturing prisoners. Democrats are as much slaves to corporate interests as Republicans. Cory Booker is the ball carrier for big pharma. Debbie Wasserman Shultz is the pay-day lending industries man in the House.
So the word “principle” seems arcane and 18th Century in today’s world. I suspect it has in fact always been a mere word to the powerful, and now such is the case with ordinary people as well. Kristoff is nostalgically pining for a world that has never actually existed. But now the technology some thought would bring us all together has exposed our nakedness in the garden.
69
As a Democrat, I pretty much agree with your assessment. Your examples are solid. Money has infected the political process on both sides of the aisle. Booker, Wasserman are prime examples of it.
@Duane Coyle
I’ll add that Obama could have pushed through Medicare for All in his first two years with exactly the same number of votes that Obamacare got. But Medicare would have been immune to the death by a thousand cuts of this administration and the people would have defended it to the death. The present complicated Rube Goldberg system was something that no one wanted and which was ripe for destruction. The act of missing the one chance in a generation to get Medicare for All has soured a lot of people on the Democrats.
@Duane Coyle
I disagree with basic assumptions that underpin your analysis. Yours is the same false equivalency that says, on the whole, both parties are equally (this is the key word) corrupt, and as such, voting for republicans out of craven self interest becomes justifiable. It absolves Trump and the Republicans from all of their sins, because "everybody's doing it". Thus, support for a Trumpian agenda can be neatly squared with ones professions of personal morality or integrity.
To be sure the Democratic party has done its share of dirt, and certainly panders to corporate interests. BUT, the levels of cravenness, and corruption ARE NOT the same between the two parties (and its not even close).
Why do you think it was that Russian trolls were so prevalent on social media, making the same argument as you of equivalency between the two parties...? Whose interests are served when people abstain from voting, or vote for 3rd parties w/ zero chance of winning (protest votes)? Making the perfect the enemy of the imperfect democrat, will leave all of us will the fate of the permanent and complete rule of the swamp.
2
A fundamental presumption that underlies our carefully balanced two-party system is that political power should serve principled policy goals. Unfortunately, the Republican party today finds itself in power partly because it has abandoned its core principles to embrace the ethos of its least savory constituents: White nationalists, rabid anti-immigration apologists, and corrupt, self-dealing swamp dwellers who are reaping undeservedly from a rigged economy.
Political power has become an end in itself. Our institutions can probably wihtstand the onslaugt, but the citizenry must play its role by voting based on an overriding national interest--the survival of our liberal democracy.
This election should not be about mobs or jobs. The soul of America at stake.
98
Riding in on the Tea Party wave in 2010, Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is another shining example of a conservative do nothing who is yet to perform real oversight as Chairman of the Comm on Homeland Security. Has he even visited our southern border yet? (Although as part of a Congressional delegation this summer, he did visit Russia over July 4th.)
All the while Johnson enables us to keep track, via his site, of how much the national debt is going up dramatically during his watch as a Trump poddle --now that's a true tea party irony.
Yet he apparrently is loathe to appear in traditional town hall meetings for which his predecessor, Russ Feingold, did like clockwork...You can see why many of us in Wisconsin wonder just exactly what he does.
4
The deafening silence of Republican politicians over Trump’s courtship of totalitarian regimes should be a rallying cry for all American’s, especially for conservatives. There was a time when Trump looked like a naive bumpkin when he attempted to articulate foreign policy goals. Now there’s mounting evidence that he’s engaged in conduct that would have put him behind bars in saner times. Richard Nixon built a career unmasking people who engaged in activity that pales in comparison to the behaviour of the Trump regime. A party is in bad shape when it needs a new Nixon to remind itself of its history.
153
Mr. Kristof writes, "Sure there are still many principled individuals within the [Republican] party." Really? In Congress? Name one.
7
A more astute, sober portrait of current Republicanism, I cannot recall. Dear Mr. Kistof is exactly pointed.
I suspect that something akin to a magic act is going on: In magic, one hand distracts from what the other hand is doing. Trump's outrageousness distracts from what oligarchic Capital is getting free rein to venture—and the ol' military-industrial complex has never had more market.
This calls for a complementary Congress that turns the ideology of less government into impotent distraction of public attention from the adventurists who put Trump and vicious Republicans in office. The tribalists are getting exactly what they seek: filling the 24/7 news cycle with relentless attention to their irrelevance—and the master of ceremonies is a real estate salesman pretending that his apprentice version of playing president is successful by suckering the serious press into relentlessly attending to his irrelevance and blowhard nonsense.
Meanwhile, oligarchic Wall Street Capital loves Russian business opportunities no less than Saudi opportunities, and god forbid that the press should care to give attention to their indifference to national debt, poverty, war (good for business), or hothouse Earth that their grandchildren will inherit.
It's as if Republicans know that the Earth will inevitably be destroyed in the next generation, so they're going to get their pay-off now, and let future generations eat the debt (or cook in the heat).
2
In case no one noticed, there is no center-right. What we see is the open emergence of a totalitarian America.
It may already be too late.
3
Every day journalists seem to prefer the sensational stories of the extreme. We need to hear the more moderate voices, moderate stories that are out there to help change the lense in which folks see our ourselves, our democracy. But do these moderate voices sell newspapers, get likes or shared?
4
The term Principled Republican, particularly when it comes to standing up to the destruction and degradation by Trump, but in many other ways as well, is simply and inescapably an oxymoron these days.
Read Malcolm Nance's book: The Plot to Destroy Democracy. .
This gives a very good explanation as to why this is happening- and how, that really hasn't been been discussed much on the airwaves. .
While a nice turn of words in calling forRepubilcans to clean house to act as a foil to Liberals, the political system is simply following the inevitable increase in pitchfork populism of that has worked so well for both sides over the last 30 years. Rile the masses with extreme views (Kamala, Elizabeth and Trump all share the same DNA), arm your thoughtless armies, win elections. As a centrist, I read/listen/watch as media becomes a self-reinforcing and eager participant in the same corruption. Each segment of CNN is populated with a feckless host interviewing two extremists meant to generate rating not two reasonable centrists - too boring. Each side loves their moment over power - The left years for progressive identify politics, wealth redistribution and righteousness over their Blue Bottle Cofee While Right is basking in low tax and regulation fueled growth & jobs at all cost while yearning for an America that never existed. Krisof’s Hope that defeat is replenishment has shown to be a failing strategy as the deat of Obama as both person and policy fueled the Right not the center
I agree that we need two parties to debate every issue from the side of principle as well as pragmatism; from the side of compssion as well as economics; from the side of justice as well as political expediency. What we cannot allow from either party is the proliferation of blatant lies, the destruction of democratic rules and procedures, influence peddling, or secret deals with foreign powers, either corporate or governmental. In the past both parties have been guilty of “cheating”, however in recent years, under Mitch McConell, along with other less principled Republican leadership, “cheating” has become standard procedure. Under Trump, the Constitution and the rule of law has been thrown away. Our country cannot survive this abuse. Under Trump we have ceased to be the United States of America. Everyone who supports this party and this administration is implicated. This is no longer “politics as usual”. This is treason.
2
In their enthusiasm to embrace all things Trump, the majority of Congressional Republicans have abdicated their constitutional duty to oversee the Executive Branch. Too many politicians nationwide have placed the Republican Party over principle in their hopes of winning elections. And leading them all is Mitch McConnell, the poster boy for pompous, oleaginous posturing.
The Republican Party is owed a long overdue shellacking in the midterms. VOTE on November 6th!
1
The Republican Party is not the possession of Max Boot or the establishment elite. They chafe at that fact, but why go back to a Party that plays to the base, but sells them out in the end - to China, Wall Street, and the globalist agenda. Mr. Boot craves an ideological alignment built around him, not much different from most Op-Ed writers I presume. Mr. Kristoff begs for a Republican moderate that Democrats will appreciate as he/she undercuts America for spiteful praise on MSNBC or CNN (see: Flake). The Democrats and media have been in a 2 year rage-filled paralysis, so intent to malign Trump and his supporters that they fail to see the benefits of a strong America. They would much rather go back to apologizing and renouncing American exceptionalism.
Thank you for a succinct piece that covers most of this abnormal time in our history. I hear McConnell and others speak about American values and how important it is to them. Never before have American values been splintered and shredded until it is not recognizable, thanks to the Republican Party now in office. The head honcho is a piece of work, and I don't say that as a compliment.
We are a relatively young country. We have hoped with each administration to become better and better. By that I don't mean more bigoted, discriminatory, shallow, mean, and greedy; just the opposite.
As a kid during WWII, America meant a country that was there to defeat the bad guys, to help the oppressed, and we showed our compassion by delivering food and supplies to our enemies after the war. America made us proud.
We were just getting the hang of it when Donald Trump came along with his brand of inhumanity, coarseness, vulgarity, and greed. We need to get back on the right track. We need to progress and get our moral compass back.
2
The Republican Party is in desperate need of a reckoning, unless of course it isn't. Unless, the populous is now too much like Trump to cause a reckoning. Unless the populous enjoys destruction too much to cause it to stop. Unless the responsibility of truth is way too much for them to bear. Unless $200.00 a barrel oil is such a scare that they don't mind being complicit in a lie. The Republican Party is in desperate need of a reckoning unless of course it's actually reckoning the Democrats.
Mr. Kristof writes: "Yet if we’re all tribal to some degree, congressional Republicans now seem to care only about tribe. The indifference to Russian interference in the 2016 election and to democratic norms is particularly sad."
Understatement of the Year... so far.
In the early 70s, when the Vietnam War was still raging and Republicans like my father took very seriously the threat of communist global dominance, he often countered my adolescent anti-war arguments with a particular rhetorical coup de grâce: "What do you want to do? Hand over the White House keys to the Russians?"
End of conversation.
I don't believe Dad thought for a minute that such a thing would ever come to pass, and that it would be Republicans who let it happen would have been beyond his imagination.
1
"The fish starts to rot from the head" goes a saying. With Trump at the helm, the Republican Party is quickly becoming a slumbering oaf entering putrefaction. It will collapse.
It is inconceivable to see America so thoroughly destroyed by this Republican Party. George Will is right, William F Buckley Jr. would have switched Democrat by now...
But the Earth is still spinning. Colonialism and imperialism are gone, Anglo-Saxons are not ruling the world. Globalization and multiculturalism are here to stay, to grow stronger, wiser, to further humanism and human rights, to overcome this syncope of nationalist sentiments. Racism will subside as well for reasons that a host of other challenges will concern us all humans: Global Warming, sustainable practices, the health of natural ecosystems: The Principle of Survival will (eventually) make us discern better and act faster.
In the face of these challenges Republican Party is indeed a dinosaur waiting to be vanquished. And vanquished it will.
Thank you and Keep the good work Nicholas!
2
The Republicans have lost their principles.They are in whatever works mode.The rich want tax cuts- done.Trump hates foreign alliances so ditch NATO-done.Trump doesn’t trust our Justice System so create questions and chaos-done.Republicans have been wary of the Soviet Union but Trump likes Putin - done.The Republicans have not only lost their principles but have helped Trump present an America that we do not recognize.They deserve to lose big time come November 6.
3
"The stakes are always high when the Senate considers a Supreme Court nomination. But the shameful spectacle that unfolded in recent weeks raised the stakes higher still. By the end, senators were not merely deciding whether to confirm an impressive nominee; we were also deciding what kind of institution the Senate is and what kind of politics we would enable. [...]
Senators had to make a choice. Would we let this partisan fever overwhelm the basic principles of fairness that have sustained our country for centuries? "
That was Mitch McConnell, patting himself on the back over the Kavanaugh vote.
That wasn't Mitch just a couple years after he gladly embraced letting "partisan fever overwhelm the basic principles of fairness" by refusing to even allow a vote (Senate's job) on the Supreme Court nominee of a President who'd twice won the popular vote.
McConnell's criminally empty excuse? He claimed that he thought the "American people" should get input on this.
Then the GOP's Congress embraced deficits in the biggest way, and Paul Ryan bragged about a secretary getting an entire $1.50 a week extra in her paycheck - then he said time to attack safety nets, because, you know, deficits.
I agree, Mr. Kristof, the leadership of the current Republican Party is hopelessly corrupt and will only take actions that benefit their owners or their party.
I also agree that we need a functioning Republican party and I hope that day comes. Not holding my breath, but Save the RINOs!
1
We are now in the "power corrupts" stage. If the GOP hold the House in the midterms, the GOP will enter the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" stage. Their gambit is to achieve permanent rule.
The litany of laments Mr. Kristof cites all point to one thing, treason.
4
I dont need the republicans or trump to keep me accountable. My conscience and instincts tell me that I should oppose them. They do not represent me or my personal values. I owe it to my family, community, America and to the world, to oppose them.
2
Senator Melendez was found not guilty by a court which heard all the facts, which is more than can be said about Mr. Trump and his cronies. Please don’t confuse or conflate the two.
3
There are flaws in the American democracy. Extreme conservatives like Mr. McConnell prevent passage of sensible public friendly laws. An extreme example is healthcare. Mr. McConnell whose own healthcare is funded by the taxpayer tirelessly refuses to provide the same benefit to his fellow citizens. What is good for him is bad for the rest of us.
Education at the Ivy League Universities, perhaps overvalued, is accessible only to the children of the very rich. An A+ student from the middle class is denied admission to these universities on the pretext that there were too many students who had better credentials (read more money or more well known fathers) and that the university had to be selective. Some bright students cannot even afford the application fee to these universities, what to say the two hundred fifty thousand dollars for tuition, board and lodging needed for a four year program at these universities.
Bad infrastructure, poor environmental quality, and global warming adversely affect both the rich and the poor. Yet, the McConnells don't want to spend money on improving these services. These are items which the conservatives should be proud to fund. No, greed trumps them. Trump trumps them.
Liberals are not exactly campaigning for handing out unearned largesse to the middle class. There is a galling and obscene gap between a CEO's salary and the salary of his employees. That gap should be reduced. That should be a conservative theme.
94
The unspoken problem is that neither party, even if purified of ideological corruption, would have a vision to offer that would truly serve America. Which raises the interesting corollary: forget about serving Americans, how about getting back to Kennedy's idea of serving America? Maybe the solution is to quit navel-gazing and maneuvering for advantage to join together to do some maintenance on the ideals and values we all depend on (no matter how much we deny or ridicule that concept).
47
@Charles Becker
During his first campaign Obama singled out Ronald Reagan as his role model. Such an act should have gotten Obama kicked out of the Democratic Party. He could have stood on the shoulders of giants but he picked Reagan, a dim witted ad man who figureheaded a corrupt neo fascist administration. But today no Democrats seems to remember the giants who made their party;
FDR: who used the Federal government to make millions of jobs, raised taxes on the rich, and put severe controls on the ruthless and corrupt Wall Street banks. He said he relished their hate. Now there is a man to admire.
JFK: Recommitted the country to service and created the peace corp, jobs programs, and the peaceful use of space. He also directly challenged corrupt corporate leaders and stood up to the military industrial establishment when the fate of the world hung in the balance. He initiated the reduction of nuclear weapons and stood for everything that was good in America and he was murdered for it.
Democrats running today can’t lose by emulating either of these heros if they have the guts to do it.
1
As a woman in her 70's, I will tell you what I have observed in my own sphere of experience.
It is not scientific and it is not based on the musings of the so-called intellectual right, men such as George Will and David Brooks. In my day, William Buckley was the standard bearer. He had a robust vocabulary which he used in the service of spewing Republican conservative nonsense.
My observation is that, try as you may to make this party respectable, there has always been a certain stinginess of spirit reflected in those who call themselves Republicans.
If you probe long enough, and I have with those I have called friends, there is a certain unseemly selfishness, and a certain credo reflecting a belief that others can have just so much and no more, and by the way, what's mine is mine. PS: We don't like anything that's very different from us.
This idea cuts across socioeconomic categories, although many tend to be wealthy. Not all. It's more of a mindset and a world view. Yes, there are exceptions, but not too many and not too often when you do a little digging down deep into their psyche.
I'm sure men like George Will can give an articulate and indignant rebuttal, but that's what I have observed in 50 years of being a Democrat, and I'm sticking to it. They simply don't give much of a darn about the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the marginalized, the workers, etc. It's not on their radar.
By the way, some Democrats embraced this thinking in the 90's and here we are.
470
@TM
I loved listening to Buckley. I never agreed with anything he said but his rhetoric was magnificent.
@TM
Very well said.
I agree completely about William Buckley.
And I stopped listening to George Will several years ago.
1
@TM
I’m in my 70’s and I have observed the same thing. I have always voted Dwemocfratic, even in the 90’s when the party lost its way because even as corporate loving conservatism, the Dems were still not as bad as the Republicans. But I have seen the drift started in the 90’s continue through the Obama administration and now it is still evident in all the challengers getting ready for 2020. Bernie, who kept the faith, has been cast into the wilderness but the New Deal consciousness is still out there waiting for someone to wake it up. The Dems could still come back to power if they come back to their roots but it seems impossible in today’s financial world where peoples candidates are filtered out on the local level before they can gain traction and money. As it is now we have a one party system with two different types of Republicans running in every election. Maybe it has to get much harder before the people wake up and use their only remaining power, the power to vote for an old time Democrat who actually represents them.
6
My concern, if Dems regain the House and increase their numbers in the Senate and governorships, is that Republican rhetoric will shift toward the center in preparation for 2020. However, no amount of back peddling can redeem a Party that's shown such distain for democratic principles, civil liberties and the most basic of human rights. The whole of the Republican party, and not just the president and congressional leadership, have demonstrated their ineptitude to serve the American people and our democratic institutions, either here or abroad.
121
@martha hulbert
Shifting toward the center for a Republican means to not want to murder as many journalists.
3
This is not a left/right or Democrat/Republican issue. This is a fundamental problem with the structure of our society. Both parties are complicit. Dismantle the war machines and the rest will fall into place. As it is this country makes its living on war. It is supported in high places and seems totally and irrivocably entrenched. This war machine needs to be replaced with a build out of infrastucture of clean energy, transportation and communication. We need a return to a civil society at the same time and hopefully, this will happen naturally, as prosperity is returned to all parts of this country, not just the major centers of the war profiteering.
9
Ever since the days of Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, the days of the Hastert Rule, this modern march towards painting the other party as an enemy of the nation has been inexorable. McConnell and Ryan (facilitated by the House Freedom Caucus) are among the most prominent current examples of that process--albeit Gingrich is still slugging--but there have been a few Democrats as well.
This process is facilitated by social media, by a lack of editorial control, by a lack of solid history and civics education in many of our schools. It has been helped along by our free press that has become silos for combative partisans. Hence it has been facilitated by citizens willing and able to travel down a road paved with willful ignorance.
Mr. Kristoff sounds reasonable, but conservative silos will paint him as another enemy of the people, a danger to the Republic.
If the Democrats cannot get supporters out to the polls (in spite of some blatant Republican attempts at voter suppression), if the Republicans can keep their current habit of tax cuts for the well-off that expands the deficit--then turn around and blame every general welfare social program for that same deficit--the country is not going anywhere worthy of admiration. We will not get a better health care system, infrastructure repair and modernization, less burdensome educational debt, or better job retraining for those left behind.
6
Principled Republicans (or Democrats) will only be possible after we stop allowing them to be bought. Mitch is dead wrong. Speech is NOT money. Bribery is money. We need to end ALL political donations and set up a national fund that is equally dispersed to legitimate candidates who agree to replenish their portion if they do not win a certain percentage of the electorate. Other democratic countries have either donation limits or spending limits which disallow the systematic bribery that masquerades as democratic government in the United States under the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. This unconstitutional ruling may have even acted as an invitation to the Russian sabotage of our election process. Once the GOP packed the Supreme Court with partisan lackeys devoted to the dismantling of the Constitution, the ultimate demise of the United States became inevitable.
12
The argument that the GOP has a roll to play by keeping the left honest falls completely apart because they have for decades abandoned true conservative principles and are simply driven by a need to remain in power at any cost.
10
The center is the place is which battling ideologies recognize that they have the responsibility, under a democracy to represent ALL citizens, not just their base. The center exists around compromise, around communication.
But right now we have one party which has engineered the voting system to represent a large minority with a larger majority in government. They do not want to lose that power, anymore than Tutsi minorities did; or the white minority in South Africa. The center is the enemy of the ruling minority.
The trouble is that the center - leaning right or left - is the life blood of democracy. It is based on the idea that each party respects its responsibility to represent the whole of the nation, not just a faction. When we don't represent the whole, democracy breaks down.
Authoritarianism is the result of a breakdown in representation. I have read a recent editorial from a pundit on the right ,who claimed that Trump talks fascism, but his actions are simple Republicanism. That's great, until you realize that those words, coupled with no center, will lead us to the real thing.
5
From the column:
"It’s difficult to explain the G.O.P.’s resistance to a stimulus during the recession..."
Sadly, it is not difficult to explain. At the time the Great Recession was setting in, the Republicans realized if they embraced austerity, a somewhat natural inclination in a time when business excess was all around, they could put the country into a deep depression and blame it all on Democrats and Obama specifically. Yes, they wanted the nation to fail so they could succeed, but they would never have admitted it. Instead, they would have presented themselves as paragons of fiscal virtue compared to the "tax and spend" drunk Democrats.
As things have turned, the Republicans are playing something of the same game, with different thrusts, nine years later. By creating a 1.5 trillion dollar tax cut going 80+ percent to the rich and mega-rich, they have edged the nation closer to a time when austerity might be the only choice. If they can pack the national debt deep enough, the ability to drawdown the national bank account through deficit spending could come to an end. That is a major goal.
In earlier times, I would never have imagined such low motives to a major political party. It is clear now, however, that they would be quite content to crash the country into a brick wall to prove they are right.
This is in no way conservative. Anyone who calls himself that has to operate from principles and at present the Republicans have abandoned all such pretensions.
25
Oh Nick. Conservatives stand for a great number of things that the Repub party represents -- building the economy, having a strong military, borders and control of immigration, justices who don't view themselves as referees. They also don't believe in identity politics, social programs that don't work, and sacrificing the economy for the sake of environmental goals that aren't reasonable. And while they believe in a social safety net they don't believe the net should be limitless.
Where the GOP has fallen down is fiscal responsibility. However, that may be an inevitable result of the vast borrowing done during the Obama years, the expansion of social programs, etc.
Russia? Most democrats screaming about Russia probably couldn't find Russia on a map, provide a history of their role in WW 2 or discuss the cold war. As you recall, in 2012, Obama said that Russia wasn't an issue. It was only the clearly fabricated claims of Trump-Russia collusion that originated with as Obama was heading out the door that lefties started painting Russia as a villain.
As far as the Saudi's go. They are bad guys in a lot of ways and we pretty well know at this point that elements of the Saudi guv knew about 9/11 in advance. Yet, I don't recall Obama doing anything about them during his admin, do you?
And what do dems stand for? Like virtually all the left, your column is long on anti-Trumpism but offers no ideas.
That might be a start, as well as having decent candidates.
4
@Ralphie
"Russia? Most democrats screaming about Russia probably couldn't find Russia on a map, provide a history of their role in WW 2 or discuss the cold war."
Simplistic and like a lot of information from the right, second hand thought. Sean Hannity maybe?
As if it was copied from a Stephen Miller speech.
Not an original or fact based response but the same tired, unoriginal, yacking head fodder.
We all deserve a better class of discourse, don't you think?
2
I disagree wholeheartedly, we don't need a robust center-right or ANY right party, the center-left is all the "accountability" that the progressives need. When America thinks of when America was great they usually think of the post-war era, you know the NEW DEAL era. The one where liberalism mostly dominated (the most conservative you really had was Eisenhower, who'd be a liberal in today's politics given how far right the Overton window has shifted.) My point is that the greatest period of American prosperity was when liberalism dominated, and since parties are much more politically homogenous now, this would necessitate democratic dominance. Granted, these Democrats have to be real progressives committed to labor unions and working people instead of billionaire donors, but that's a separate issue. Most of the social democratic reforms made in Western Europe were made by the Leftists having a decisive majority in their respective parliaments. 30 years of Democratic supremacy gave us the New Deal, I'm excited what another golden age could give us (granted not all Democrats govern equally, which is why the ideological litmus test is so important.) As for the "good" the GOP has given us, Democrats have traditionally been the slightly less militant of the 2 parties, and given the current climate, a return to anything remotely resembling reasonable Foreign Policy (not holding my breath because of the history of US imperialism) would entail a Democratic supremacy.
6
Just to be clear, the GOP abandoned principle when it embraced the “Southern Strategy”. Some of us saw where this was going years ago. They’re like the Whigs. Their time has passed. They are a cynical minority trying to retain power and have demonstrated they will do anything to that end.
14
"Historically, Republicans were associated with fiscal conservatism..." Not for quite some time.
First there was 'voodoo economics' and the Laffler curve--the phrase was George H.W. Bush's comment on Reaganomics--who was the last Republican honest enough to raise taxes. Then we had centrist Democrats for eight years, until we got George W. Bush and the first of Republican-driven tax cuts for the rich--remember Dick Cheney's "deficits don't matter"? Along with this came the phase out of the estate tax--which effectively disappeared over the next decade (until it came back in 2011 because the repeal was not made permanent).
Compounding the problem--the modern Republicans have been dominated by neo-Con expansionist hawks (Cheney, Rumsfield et al) who have never met a military expenditure or war that they didn't like.
The combination has been fatal--the crippling of the public treasury by reduced revenues and a complete distortion on the expenditure side has caused the deficit to explode. And it can be credited to Republican fecklessness and indifference to the lives of ordinary Americans.
10
Mitch McConman and Paul Lyan have taken somewhat different paths, but their goals have been the same: to impose the policy agenda of a few thousand "Americans" on the hundreds of millions.
McConman has done it by brute force, often obfuscated by his claims of fidelity to the Constitution. Lyan has done it by posing as a policy wonk. Paul Krugman has accurately described Lyan as a "flim-flam man" who uses magical asterisks to concoct balanced budgets.
It appears the majority of Americans see McConman and Lyan for what they are, yet they have remained in power. November 6 is our opportunity, the opportunity of the majority, to assert ourselves and take back the House and, maybe just maybe, the Senate.
21
The Republican party is not a conservative party. It is the reactionary party, dedicated to reestablishing a government of white men, by white men, and for white men. They want to restore the 50s; all that is open to debate is whether it is the 1950s, the 1850s, or the 1750s.
The Republican party lost its way when as an expedient in the 1960s it decided to welcome in the white Southern vote. It then continued to take in the anti-abortion faction, the Christianists, and the Randians. And until 2016 the GOP elites, such as the Bush family, controlled the party even if their actual policies differed from that of the base.
Trump saw what the GOP had become. He is a great salesman, and he pitched his policies accordingly. End of the road for the party of Lincoln.
Yes, we need a reasonable party on the right, just as we need one on the left. But we will never get that from today's GOP.
33
To Mr. Kristof and others with similar comments here, the party hasn't lost its way. It's the culmination of a 40-year plan to gain power by any means. They just covered up the real reason for years to seem principled or reasonable. But now that they control everything and are so close to their goal of destroying democracy, they're no longer pretending. Remember:
> The adoption of "voodoo economics" as a governing philosophy...you know, tax cuts for the rich increase government revenue.
> Paul Weyrich: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." This is the mission statement for their voter suppression.
> Use of the courts to roll back voting rights, women's rights, and to allow the tidal wave of corporate money to take over elections.
> Dick Cheney: "Deficits don't matter."
> Opposition to "big" government while enacting laws controlling what people can do with their bodies.
28
Of course we need intellectually honest and practically principled Conservatives and their "scientific" viewpoints.
I would certainly be labeled a Progressive because I seem to fall on the side of Progressive proposals and I am neither deist nor theist. I may fail those types of tests for Conservationism.
But I am an honest broker of ideas and I play the game in good honest scientific fashion. I try to confine my decisions to the facts, evidence, and models that actually work.
Yes I do start with a "liberal" interpretation of freedom, equality, and the common good but I do not think my objectives and goals are far removed from most secular Conservatives I used to know.
There are many ways to skin a cat and sometimes the Conservative way may be best. And also a Conservative candidate may be best. And YES I have voted R before for these reasons.
BUT NOT NOW - NOT IN THE R WRAPPER!
We are where Europe was in 1930s. If one does not see that and fear that they are hopelessly incorrigible.
Ditto if they don't see that the economy is just a lucky continuation of a Worldwide trend that started under Obama.
If you love our Country and what is portended to stand for then you cannot vote GOP. It is clear and as simple as that.
We can rebuild two necessary and good Parties later. We need two viewpoints. But we do not need to destroy our great Nation and we will under current GOP.
28
I agree we need party to support conservative causes - it won't be from the GOP. Principled Conservatives, those who despise what has happened to the Republican party need to band together and distance themselves from the horror show of politics led by Trump, McConnell, and Koch brothers.
3
I'm a longtime independent, and have voted for candidates across the political spectrum. Character—honesty, empathy, and willingness to work together in good faith—is more important to me than a particular policy.
My Republican votes had been dwindling in recent years. As of 2016, I am never voting for a Republican again. I cannot vote for cowards who hide behind a man like Trump, who have abandoned any pretense of principle except the pursuit of power. I have changed my registration to Democrat.
We need voting reform immediately. Ranked Choice Voting is the solution. It's used in Australia, Ireland, and some US cities. You select your #1, #2, and #3 choice. No more winner-takes-all. No more voting against a candidate for strategic reasons. It results in a more fair representation and weakens political parties in favor of coalitions.
10
In the long run it won't make any difference which party wins elections because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are willing to challenge the automobile industry's indifference to global warming, which will bring an end to political discourse (and life on earth) within the current century.
3
Mr K might be more inclined to try something “risky” and *gasp* new concerning rents in California if he was paying rent. Rents that are staggeringly high even in the outer desert-dry suburbias, rents that haven’t come down a dime since the worldwide economic collapse in 2007.
Mr K, Wall Street what about those “risky” collateralized debt obligations and tranches in debt portfolios that were garbage in 2007-8 but were rated AAA by Moody’s et al, and that housing bubble in an example from a modest southern california working class suburban rental nearly doubled, just like the housing prices.
The housing bubble collapsed.
The rental bubble never did.
Maybe as FDR said as he entered office facing a depression and folks who really needed help: “Lets try to do something, if it doesn’t work we’ll try something else. But for God’s sake, we’ve got to try!
I’m for that, for the renters who have no one watching out for them, for working people who pay taxes and work hard and shouldn’t be gouged by greedy rental companies and agents.
6
The difficulty outlined in finding principled Republicans is that none of them are in office, and none have influence. That dearth is a consequence of control of the GOP by a handful of billionaires who control reality for 40% of voters with their hugely successful disinformation machine. They set up the primaries for the GOP, what their candidates say, and what they must do to be supported by the brainwashing apparatus. It is working beyond their expectations.
10
I am a long term registered Republican but will never vote for ANY Republican until that party gains an acceptable level of honesty, decency and support for the Constitution. I am repulsed by what the GOP has become. VOTE DEMOCRATIC UP AND DOWN THE TICKET, until...
49
@WL All of them voted for Kavanaugh. I was beginning to like a few of them but not now, Sasse, Flake, Corker and Susan Collins, just a few who I was beginning to like voted for the creep. NO MORE, Democrat forever. The body language of his wife when he was sworn in was pitiful. In my opinion, she is an abused woman and scared of the man. Now we have to deal with him on the highest court!
Columbia law prof Tim Wu has pointed out the increasing concentration of corporate power in the U.S. with new oligopolies emerging. Well, that same phenomenon has been true, but not so obviously so, in the U.S. political environment. People like TR in his "Bull Moose" period, John Anderson against Carter and Reagan, and Ross Perot in the nineties, all tested the viability of third parties but showed themselves only to be spoilers. Part of the problem is baked into the American constitutional system, which has shown itself, unlike compromise-oriented parliamentary systems, to lead inexorably to duopoly. Either you change the Constitution (not going to happen on this point) or accept the political duopoly. Kristof is correct that the real fights of significance are not between the parties, but within the parties for the key directions of the parties. Both parties are at loose ends, but the Democratic party is actually more fractured than the Republicans at the moment, which helps explain whey the blue wave will be no tsunami.
4
If Diogenes is still looking for an honest man, and he's focused on the Republican Party, he's waiting for Godot.
It is not simply that its leadership and many among its rank and file are shape-shifting. Politicians of both parties do that all the time, tacking port and starboard with shifting winds for short-term political advantage.
It's that they're abandoning what were ostensibly their long-held core values and principles, and that they're lying about it. For the GOP, the truth has become a scarce commodity. What's worse, too many Americans are getting used to it.
When Diogenes finally puts his lamp down in frustration and resignation, he'll be horrified to find out that he won't even be eligible for Social Security to help him pay his way out of the darkened abyss, and Godot, as usual, will be nowhere to be found.
17
Given the legal hurdles a third center-right party would face, reclaiming the G.O.P. is about the only, even if questionable, alternative as a counterweight. The process would take years--perhaps decades--of building and the right leader with the political instincts of a Lincoln or FDR. Unfortunately, in my view we do not have the necessary time before we become an outright plutocratic dictatorship or any now visible leader to get the job done. Perhaps it is just a time for the sober reflection in this article to sink in before the right people get to work.
4
I think that this editorial is largely missing the point.
The Republican Party is engaged in a take no prisoners project of instituting minority rule in the US for the forseeable future. That is why there is the reverence for the Constitution (which locks in red state bias in the Senate and Electoral College), gerrymandering, voter suppression and a packed Supreme Court and federal judiciary.
Their governing principle is "Take America back". The rest of what goes on in government are just details supporting that over-riding objective.
Wake up! What did you think it was all about?
38
The election of trump has shown that you cannot run a country like a business. It has shown that elections can be won by foreign interference and the ill-qualified candidate can be placed in office even though the majority chose the other candidate. McConnell has shown that republicans cannot be in power because they are not concerned with the country’s best interest. Their only concern is with their own power. The 2018 elections must restore sanity and heart and soul to our government. We must bring an end to republican power in general and, most definitely, end the reign of trump. We cannot be sustained on the junk food of his Twitter presidency
40
@MLE53 It's probably true that you can't run a country like a business, but citing Trump is a bad example because his business have all been crooked scams. (As is his entire presidency).
America needs both a strong center right and center left party. There is some point on the bell shaped curve that edges into the realm of extremism on either side. Add in a bit of conscious, humility, empathy, principle, open mindedness, truth, compromise, and intelligence to the mix. Come to think about it, that sounds like President Obama.
51
There are plenty of socialist countries which do just fine and don't need right-wingers to keep them "centered". Denmark, Canada, Finland, to name a few.
1
It's clear that we need more than 2 major parties.
With only 2 major parties, each can take a stance that opposes the other, while taking advantage of their temporary power, while it lasts, for financial and power-control benefits. This allows them to overlook, or sweep under the rug many other issues that get passed by, "in the interest of the greater good." For example, let's elect a President who is anti-abortion, and we will overlook the fact that he will help pass a huge tax cut to the already-very-wealthy.
If we had 4th, 5th, 6th parties, with developed staffs and at least minimal streams of income, the 2 major parties we now look askance at, and don't trust any of, would be summoned to respond to more detailed and intricate queries about their strategies and plans.
It's easy to say. "I'm against illegal immigration" for instance, and then you have to swallow all this Republican nonsense, spending money like water while we pay our yearly taxes and don't have good health insurance. It would be better to be able to parse this out and create a system wherein the ruling party members were brought to respond to issues that actually matter to the majority of Americans.
10
@Thinker. Two parties are adaquate. More than two parties opens up the likelihood of minority rule. But both parties MUST be obligated to the sustainability of this country and its Constitution. That is not now the case. The GOP must be fixed or else replaced by a legitimate entity not under the control of organizations, corporations, or nations that do not represent the citizens of this country.
8
@Eric Hansen Two parties are clearly inadequate. The real problem is that our current system of government, and the ecosystem that it has created, has basically gobbled up all the available oxygen that might sustain a third (and even a fourth) party. I do believe it's possible to create a more centrist independent party, but it would take years, and I'm not sure we have that much time left. In the mean time, both parties will do everything in their power to cement their built-in advantages.
2
@Thinker: Al of the US states conspire together to preclude formation of any new national political parties with red tape and high costs blocking access to ballots.
"Principled" anybodies these days seem on the endangered species list. All those big ticket, historical prep schools and Ivy League law and business faculties seem fraught with quality control issues in their outputs. Simple morality issues of honesty, much less good and bad, stump the stars at every turn. Media interviews now rarely hit the vein of truth and the whole truth responses.
7
@L Martin. There are principled politicians, just on the Republican side of the aisle. Right now, on Long Island, there are candidates, Democrats, who are running because in the hearts they know that President Trump and the GOP will destroy democracy of there are no checks and balances after the midterms. These good people are running out of a passion for the country and its citizens, not to line their pockets. These candidates are spending every waking hour between now the election working for constituents.
1
The Democrats need to be held accountable, but by a party that motivates it *away* from the "center"-right, not toward it to further their own even-farther-right dreams. In particular, we are (still!) (and even deeper in!) a chronic and existential climate emergency foisted on us largely by fossil burners' deliberate attack. That requires not crimping of the tax wallet, but a full opening of it: our role in restoring regular (climate, and Congress) order needs to be comprehensive, and our budget for that spread wider than "covfefe"'s arms near shady Russians. THEN ask debt questions later.
We need a party to reminds us the high-score figure that's our economy takes a backseat to our responsibilities to help the less fortunate, stop Wall Street from regulating Congress (thank you Bernie), and not push endangered species (let alone humanity) to death by runaway Earth overheat.
Oh wait, we already HAVE that: the Green Party.
Lots of Democrats mortally loathe them with every fiber of their being (and some fibers not of it) for their "spoiler"-ness, a valid concern when roughly no one gives two about them and many still think a Green Party is where farmers go to drink and twerk. Once the Sane-ami rolls in 11/6, though, we can coax the new saner Congress to make ranked-choice a thing and make that less a problem. Then wise voters (precious gems, I know) can put their Democrat and Green candidates as top two, and the remnants of Tropical Twitstorm GOP dead last, every time.
3
@SR yes, thanks to the Green party and the 7 million votes for it in 2016 we got Trump. No thanks. If they really cared about the planet they would have at least voted against him, not thrown their vote away. Just like the Nader voters in 2000 who couldn't "hold their noses" and vote Gore giving us a unending war.. since we do have a two party system in every meaningful way, these splinter groups just give the election to the GOP - every time
1
I consider 2016 to have been a two-fer against Corporatism...
(1) It proved that Republican corporatists can't govern with reactionary populists, and
(2) It proved that Democratic corporatists can't win without progressive populists.
Thus, I urge America to adopt two courses:
First, I urge the Democratic Party to move leftward into a model in line with many European left-wing parties. Those corporatist elements within the current Democratic Party should feel unwelcome to remain.
Second, I urge the creation of a new center-right party which I dub the "Industrialist Party" having an unabashedly business-friendly but socially moderate orientation. It would serve as a haven for both disaffected, anti-Trumpist Republicans and corporatist Democrats.
The name Industrialist conveys an air of innate support for economic strength and growth. It's members would be called "Indies", and it's media shorthand would be the letter "I", co-opting the current shorthand for "Independents", thus expanding its appeal to those who currently consider themselves politically "independent" thinkers.
America would be well served by the existence of a leftist Democratic Party and a center-right Industrialist Party, leaving the currently reactionary Republican Party to suffer a swift and well-deserved descent into a fatal Whiggy abyss.
12
The next generation in the red states will be bearing the brunt of present GOP policies and the takeover of the judicial branch by constipated right wing judges. It is difficult to believe that masochism will persist and the present troglodytes will be replaced by an equally repulsive set. Reality will catch up with those states and if their next generation continues to support a party that is destroying democracy by acting against the will of the majority the US will be on its way to a serious split.
9
The blue states are getting screwed, too - remember, we pay the bulk of the taxes.
1
America has not “lost its way.” It has succumbed to one of the most brilliant onslaughts of propaganda ever devised by a demagogue and his enablers, aided and abetted by a compliant media that refuses to tell the truth. Our best political scientists and historians warn us every hour of our descent into fascism. The media not merely won’t repeat but adamantly ignore those warnings. The eminent historian Christopher Brown has called Mitch McConnell “the gravedigger of democracy.” Browning has received scant attention. McConnell himself, one of the most brazenly corrupt and morally bankrupt politicians in the history of the republic, is still treated by the Times with velvet gloves. Our corporate chieftains, university leaders, clergy, and most of all the owners of our media have not been bullied into silence but rather have either bullied themselves or on the side of darkness. We’re at the point of no return and those who could turn us back fiddle while Rome burns. Good night, United States of America. You had a nice run.
Principles can make people respected but politically ineffective.
Politics is about power. The first principle of a politician is to be elected to serve. Power is crucial to achieving that end.
We seek to limit the authority of elected officials by the rule of law. Laws limit the ways that power may be exercised and so protect from tyrannical rule of powerful individuals.
The Republicans faced a terrible conflict in 2009. They had lost the Presidency. But the bigger problem was that conservative policies had not produced the promised outcomes. Unconstrained tax cuts produced deficits not expansion and over use of military force produced quagmires, for example. After eight years, a Republican administration left with the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. But Republican candidates could not shift to more centrist policies because they were dependent on people who would not allow them to. This made them fear any success of Obama using moderate policies. They misrepresented moderate and liberal policies as Bolshevism, lying just as does Trump, now. They needed to gain power by any means available. Cooperating with Obama was terrifying because it might make Obama’s power and that of Democrats greater than their own. Truth and duty to country threatened the power of Republicans, so the abandoned them. That is why Trump could win.
39
Someday someone will write a biography of Newt Gingrich subtitled, "The Man Who Destroyed America." It was he who brought the idea of tribal politics to the Republicans long before Mitch McConnell had them voting against anything Obama proposed. And the Republicans have never looked back. The country means nothing to them in comparison to the party and their own careers. The result is that we don't have two political parties in Washington. Instead we have two Inherently incompatible political entities working in two directions for two different goals. And now with Trump they have split the country as a whole just as badly.
80
We have ONE political party in this country: the party of the rich.
Whether one agrees with Mr. Kristof depends on whether one views Trump as the last 40 years of Republicanism taken to an extreme degree, or as qualitatively different. I believe he's both; his views and actions are such extreme versions of 4 decades of Republican policy that he's qualitatively different.
Republican attempts to curtail civil rights go back to Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act. Johnson was warned that if he signed it, the Democrats would lose the South for a generation. The prediction was wrong only in that the Democrats have lost it ever since.
Republican opposition to environmental protection dates to 1970, when Nixon was forced to create the EPA.
Republican attempts to create a conservative judiciary go back to late Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell's 1971 memo.
Republican attempts to cut taxes and justify the cuts by saying that the increased growth would pay for them go back to Reagan's 1981 tax cut. That, and all Republican tax cuts since, have redistributed more income to the rich, ballooned the annual federal deficit, and served as their evidence that social programs like Social Security and Medicare (and now Affordable Care) must be cut.
Republican spending on expensive arms systems that simply don't work go back to Reagan's Star Wars.
Trump stripped off the cloak of careful Republican rhetoric on these and other topics. He said exactly what he thought, no matter how offensive, and required his supporters to be syncophants.
59
‘Power Vs Fairness’, which is the more 'common' human trait? And is each developed through learning or are they more instinctual to one’s nature?
Both parties admitted after the SCOTUS Hearings that power trumps fairness and unfairness. Fairness is a social judgment that most within a ‘general’ population can embrace whereas power is an individual privilege that can be leveraged socially. Thus the principle of fairness is the more common human trait. Game contests and competitions have rules to determine true winners also validate this principle. Those who believe that power is the more common human trait are therefore ‘abnormally’ predisposed to place self-motivations (winning) above the interest of others (fairness) in conducting social interactions of various sorts.
Adult guardians’ of young siblings or young children in schools are constantly beset with refereeing and admonishing their charges behaviors with one another. Controlling bullying, fighting, and selfishness are a child’s first teaching lessons about the need for appreciating the necessity of fairness in social interactions. Bullies, instigators and gangs are always fewer in life. Employing behaviors to assert or concede power (protection) is a human instinct to be managed. Using white collar crime or committing frauds in facts, rules and procedures to extract personal privileges at the expense of others? Republicans suffer from arrested social development; thereby unfit to 'control' a democracy.
7
It is misleading to imply that our problems today are the responsibility of just the republican party. Democrats, Republicans, it makes little difference who runs Washington to the people who tie up our leadership with their special interest, which are carried out by bothl parties in their turn, regardless of what the people wish. Trump is president because the country is waking up to the reality of our broken down politics and the media that has been covering for it. Political change is in the air and it has a long way to go before we will be able to satisfactorily move forward in the new direction our world is headed.
7
@Joe Gilkey re: your inability to differentiate republicans from democrats. Your condition is called false equivalency Mr. Gilkey.
1
Outside of cutting taxes and giving huge tax breaks and loopholes to businesses, getting rid of regulations they don't like, and increasing spending for the military, what have Republicans done positively for this country? Think of all the progress that's been made by the liberals of their day: the repeal of slavery; child labor laws; women's right to vote and a push for equal pay; worker safety protection; anti-trust legislation; pensions and health care for the elderly; civil rights protections for minorities; public school assistance; the right of gay people to marry . . . even environmental protections like the Clean Water and Clean Air Act and the creation of the EPA under Nixon were pushed and guided by liberals. Conservatives fought every one of these measures.
I understand that Republicans are a necessary corrective to the excesses of Democrats, and help check bloated spending and bureaucracy. I have just never understood what Republicans of our time want to do positively to help build our country. The nihilistic vision of Reagan ("government IS the problem") has lead inexorably to the authoritarian, oligarchical, nationalist, fearful Party of Trump.
Perhaps the principled Republicans of today should look far back to the roots of their Party - to Lincoln and to Theodore Roosevelt - when "conservatism" not only meant conserving that which is good, but building a future for all of us.
83
@Buck Roy
What exactly is productive about the Republicans' economic policy?
They pretend they have the universal answer to everything - tax cuts. It would be one thing if they were targeted to people who would spend it and put the money back into the economy. But they are not. They go to corporations and wealthy individuals.
Individuals with more money than they can spend on goods and services invest their windfall in stocks which naturally boosts the stock market but does not benefit to the Main Street economy. Companies won't invest in new plant and jobs if the market for their goods or services isn't expanding; instead they will buy back their stock to boost its value to enrich their executives, or invest their windfall in financial instruments.
In other words, the beneficiaries of the tax cuts do nothing productive with the extra money.
And this is before considering the other side of the equation. Paying for the tax cuts means neglect of the nation's housekeeping needs the starvation of national housekeeping, and the endangerment of earned benefits, which takes away from our collective purchasing power.
7
@Buck Roy
Respectfully our governments, especially our federal one have always grown the economy as a unit of production more than any private company. That’s why businesses want privatize it. Besides the military and postal services it is the single larger employer in the world. Furthermore since they make no products besides stamps and currency. They offer contracts to private companies to make all products needed from ships to trash bags to vehicles to roads and bridges, stadiums etc. etc. They our also the biggest underwriters of huge project loans. So really our governments are the biggest single multipler for economic growth. I admit they are not as efficient as private businesses but that’s by design it is a public entity meaning multiple oversights and long deliberations are required! That’s are taxes at work without profit except to private companies who charge our government. The problem is not individual citizen taxes but that businesses that reap the highest profits and services from us non business owners and the largest group of taxpayers have been and are paying tax rates and amounts that are much much to low for the rewards our governments provide to businesses. And the Republican Party is the party of Business!
@Buck Roy The standard Republican soundbite that Obama "added almost as much debt to the US government as ALL presidents since George Washington" is deeply misleading:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/15/obamas-federal-debt-g...
As the article notes, Obama inherited a huge amount of debt in the form of Bush's fiscal stimulus to ward of the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression, in part directly caused by Republican's deregulation of the financial markets.
As to your suggestion that "only a growing economy solves problems," how did a growing economy fix the problems I listed in my original post? How does a growing economy fix corporate welfare and tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%? How does a growing economy work with our allies to foster democratic stability?
Republicans represent farms states. Those same states the old Articles of Confederation were meant to govern ... limited federal government allowing the state to exercise complete control over its resources and people and allowing religion to play a vital role in the ethics and morales of the society. The current Constitution stripped those states of their authority. So what we're seeing today is a re-emrgence of the Articles being adroitly layered into the Constitution giving states back their authority thus freeing the federal government of states rights issues.
The problem is the Articles were for an agrarian society and the Constitution for an industrial one. Note, the time the Constitution was written and adopted conincides with the industrial revolution in England migrating to the Americas ... the Articles wasn't written to address and industrial society in a city environment. They only address farming communities.
Point being, republicans are scuttling the Constitution giving states rights that were once given in the Articles and doing so without debate.
8
@Coyote Old Man
The Article of Confederation? Those have been dead for over 200 years. No one sits around discussing how to bring them back.
They weren't even designed for what you are talking about. City vs country? They had the individual states with the greater power and a rump national government that mostly served as a debating society for the states.
It was a failure because you couldn't have each state in charge of things that impacted the others states. The US would have flown apart. So they decided to update the Articles and realized they needed something better with the Constitution.
But he screwed the farm states with tariffs.
The Grossly Obnoxious Popinjays have 3 principles.
Win at any cost.
Lie all the time.
Protect and support Donald Trump for he is God.
86
@hen3ry
Oh come now... You are certainly talking about the Democrats here.
Win at any cost.(Maxine Waters demands to get in faces)
Lie all the time.(When have the Dems ever told the truth)
Protect & support the holy government for it is god.
@Rocket J Squrriel I wish I was. I do agree that both parties do go overboard. But right now and for the past decade or more the GOP has been the more unprincipled of the two parties.
You write that "Republican leaders in Congress actively resist providing congressional oversight and are no more than the president’s poodles".
The problem is that Republican leaders including Trump are poodles of a few mega donors such as the Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, the Koch Brothers, Steven Schwarzman, Paul Singer, and a few others. Not that the Dems aren't taking "legal bribery", but the Republican party's policy is all shaped by these few very rich... (complete the sentence with some imagination).
99
In politics it’s extremely difficult to find politicians having certain principles due to electoral funding. One way traffic politics is no good for the nation. There should always be a strong opposition party or parties who serve as checkmates when the party in power indulges in certain things which are no good for the nation.
Opposition party shouldn’t oppose everything for the sake of opposing. Instead it should play a constructive role and not the destructive one. Hope Republicans and Democrats understand it.
4
Gee, the contrast with "principled" Democrats must make it especially painful for Mr.Kristof. The calls for civility by Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and Maxine Walters were comparatively high-minded. Maybe not.
If Mr. Kristof wishes to be accurate, he needs to address this problem on both sides, not just one.
13
@Maurice Gatien When did the Democrats nominate a candidate who lies constantly, who has refused to release his tax returns, who was so demagogic he or she reminded Auschwitz survivors of Hitler, who openly courted neo-Nazis, who's campaign was openly racist and xenophobic, who acted like Putin's stooge while dissing our allies, and who invited bribery by foreign government through owning a hotel a few blocks from the White House? When the Democrats have one of those, then talk about "the problem on both sides."
@Maurice Gatien Of course, let's make sure that we blame it on the party that is out of power. Democrats don't control the Senate, the House, SCOTUS, or the Presidency. False equivalency Mr. Gatien.
The problem on both sides? One side believes and echoes the drivel by the president, how he trusts every autocrat who tells him they're good people. And the other side are Democrats.
2
The mythical search for a political unicorn continues - a Republican who is NOT trying cut short American lives, who is NOT actively killing American democracy, who is NOT rigging the courts for corporations and the 1% and against the common man for decades to come, whose head is NOT stuck inside the nation's uteruses, and who does NOT deny and disparage science in public.
Kristof is right, of course.
The Republican party is not even close to being a political party; it's a cult....of power, greed, white supremacy, vote-rigging, secrecy, authoritarian rule, hypocrisy, criminality, unConstitutionality, propaganda, conspiracy, denialism, cruel Christianity, Up-Is-Downism, cognitive dissonance and every diabolical, Machiavellian technique imaginable necessary for right-wing control of society.
For those bamboozled citizens and eligible voters who like to say that voting 'doesn't make a difference' of who believe the false equivalence that both parties are equally guilty of not helping Americans, you are falling into a Republican trap.
There is only one party that doesn't want Americans to vote AND actively works to make sure Americans don't vote AND tries hard to make sure some votes are NOT counted.
The Republican Party.
The fact that the GOP can't stand democracy and the will of the people should be a major clue, even for the clueless.
D for democracy; R for Randian Reverse Robin Hood Robber-Baron Russian-Republican Regressives.
November 6 2018
VOTE
It matters.
542
@Socrates
Of course I can't vote in US elections even if my life and that of people I love is always affected by their outcome. But I can stress on the importance of US eligible voters to do their civic duty and vote every time they have the opportunity, because, Governments, like it or not, enact the Laws of the land, (and in the case of the USA, the Laws of the world).
And that, legally binds everybody, wether you like it or not.
25
Repubs: All about the 1%. The regressive party.
Dems: All about the 99%. The progressive party.
Why can't more people see this?
3
@Socrates; You put it perfectly. "Principled Republican" is an oxymoron. I admire Mr. Kristof a great deal, but here he is engaging in extreme wishful thinking.
Thank you for your blunt assessment of the Republican party. How sad for the country. Hopefully we are not far from the onset of Trump fatigue. It can happen fast enough, as far as I'm concerned.
23
They've become a party of Trump minions
With no independent opinions,
Since Trump is a sap
Brainless mayhap
They end up in bizarre dominions.
All life is a devious plot
Concocted by Dems quite a lot,
And cries of collusion
Is a fake illusion
Putin loaned Trump most of what he's got.
52
The only question that matters is whether or not people are convinced that things are bad enough now.
The answer will be given in a couple of weeks.
Then we will have some idea of how much more we will have to suffer.
47
The answer will be given starting this very Monday, when early voting starts. The results will be announced on Election Day, but a large percentage of votes will have already been cast before that day.
I always find it hard to believe that some 10% or more of those who say they will vote are truly “undecided” at this point. Does anyone really believe that people who always vote and absolutely know they will vote this time as well don’t already know who they will vote for—at least in the races for the U.S. House and Senate, and for Governor? I don’t.
8
@Duane Coyle
Here’s another response from the paranoia corner. You know, the place where conspiracy nuts live and often turn out to be right. It doesn’t matter how people vote. The voting machines are owned by Republicans. That, by the way, is hardly a hidden fact. You can Google it.
Here, by the way, is where much of it began.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/
Mr. Kristof, You will have a long search if you are seeking courageous, principled republicans, and if you find a few that will not change that party's decades long effort to subvert and seize the reigns of government and power. Trump is not an anomaly. He is a product of that party's subversion and denial of truth and obfuscation. The list is long from their undermining of unions and government itself under Reagan through the falsehoods that led to the senseless war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich to the declaration that their one purpose under Obama was not to work with him, but destroy him politically which led to the Merit Garland debacle not to mention their undermining of voter rights throughout this time. It will take a deep change of view point by Republicans at large before they can represent our entire nation rather than the rich and short sighted who dominate it now.
116
@just Robert:"The list is long from their undermining of unions and government itself under Reagan "
Reagan was right about the Soviet Union. Regarding the "welfare queen", I lived next door to a welfare prince in Detroit.
At the beginning of the month he would offer to sell his mother's food stamps. Near the end of the month he would ask for money because "his mother was hungry". Yes, there were times I reached in my own pocket to help him out. Anecdotal? No, empirical.
The middle class begin losing wealth in 1973, but don't let that stand in the way of a good polemic.
3
@jp That's exclusively anecdotal, unless you mention how much money you gave him (which would be a defined, empirical amount).
There are always people who abuse the system. I would wager wealthy people and tax loopholes they lobbied for benefit more overall than people who sell their food stamps to get by.
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@Jp
Your anecdote reminds me of when I was in college in the early 1980's, when the Secretary of Education at the time was lambasting how college students were using student loans for “Spring Break Divestiture” and “Stereo and New Car Divestiture,” which was veiled language that accused minority students of misusing student loans. The truth of the matter was that this kind of abuse was in reality being practiced in abundance by well-off students whose parents wouldn’t pay for their entertainment. I remember a couple of guys in my French class bragging about doing this; they were fanatical Reagan supporters. When I pointed out the philosophical contradiction of their actions, they laughed and shrugged their shoulders. The people I hung with used their student loans to pay for their tuition and picked up part-time jobs to pay for their entertainment. I guess everybody has an anecdote, Jp. I hope that mine doesn't stand in the way of your own polemic too much.
"Voters who back Trump because they see him as anti-elitist" evidently don't care that he's a billionaire who inherited his way to wealth and power, who stiffed his clients and cheated his "students," who signs off on tax proposals that benefit him and his fellow billionaires at the expense of the rest of us, who makes business deals with the enemies of our nation (including those who fund jihadist madrassahs) and who tries every possible means to deprive millions of his fellow citizens of affordable health care for the simple reason that his despised predecessor was the author of their salvation. So, no, he's not an elitist- he's a man of the people, just paying his taxes as we're all compelled to do.
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I am one that you are talking about but my principals would not suit you progressives, they oppose almost everything you believe in. The president has a couple of principals. First as much as possible keep your promises. And second put citizens of the US benefits ahead of everyone else. Two I greatly agree with.
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Trump has no principles. We in NY and NJ have seen him in action, evading taxes, not paying his contractors, going into bankruptcy so that we could pay his debts, running Atlantic City into the ground, and now he's going to run the whole country into the ground with tax cuts for the rich.
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@vulcanalex It gets hard to tell sarcasm from opinion these days. What is this about keeping promises? Only a slight effort is required to find nearly endless articles about Trump not keeping promises. In his previous life, he cheated contractors, then went to court when they tried to collect what he had promised. Do you find this acceptable in your neighbors, let alone the president?In a big way. He absolutely LIES about things that can be easily fact-checked. He represents you and the country to the world. And the world is watching and paying attention. And you approve. I honestly don't get it.
@vulcanalex Ha,ha, ha, ha, Best laugh I have had in days, thanks! Like to know where you get your info
on Progressives. Just because they cannot be bought by the rich or big business and will only take small donations and try to serve regular folks and all, which I think are pretty fine principles , you condemn them?
Wow, this truly is upside down thinking.
“Sure, there are still many principled individuals within the party, but as a national institution the Republican Party is hollow.”
Pray tell who are the many principled individuals within the GOP because I’m having a problem identifying them?
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@Mary-Lou
Nicholas probably identified most of the remaining ones in the column.
Of course, it's telling that none of them currently hold public office. Those Republicans in public office are so afraid of Le Grand Orange's reactionaries mounting primaries against them that they vote for whatever he wants (although what he wants changes every few minutes, which explains the rather whiplashed look on their faces much of the time).
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While I fully agree with your analysis, it is worth discussing the structural weaknesses of our election system that has produced such deplorable results.
Foremost is gerrymandering and second is the-winner-takes-it-all system that together with large scale data analysis invite massive manipulation that all too often subverts the popular vote. This system perpetuates two parties and allows for no credible path to splitting off a moderate conservative wing that would serve truth and country rather than a rogue party.
It is time to rethink our electoral system and modernize our democracy. Of course, in the interim, the GOP needs several devastating defeats to come to its sense.
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@Konrad Gelbke Come to its sense? Please! We've been witnessing, in horror, the GOP brand of 'sense' and determined they have none .....that isn't antithetical to a healthy democracy.
@Konrad Gelbke
Agreed. Party drawn districts must be replaced by a system that provides proportional representation and not consolidation of power by a political party. Secondly, national and statewide elections (at the very least) should be subject to runoff provisions so that the top two vote-getters face off in a 1-vs-1 election. Thirdly, electoral votes should be split proportionally instead of winner takes all.
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"Principled Republicans" is now a non-sequitur. People with personal integrity don't count themselves among the Republican ranks. If they find themselves registered in that party, the principled quit.
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@AMR ........... and it's always been an oxymoron.
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Here are some suggestions to Mr. Kristof's search: Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and their lineal descendants. Being a believer in genetic transmission of some of the acquired characters, I would call Dwight David Eisenhower II and Theodore Roosevelt V Principled Republicans. Another of Theodore's descendants, Kermit Roosevelt III, is listed in Wikipedia as a Democrat: a mutation that disqualifies him from a Republican candidacy to an any office.
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There was a Kermit Roosevelt who helped overthrow Moussadegh. So that name makes me queasy. Putting the Shah in power turned Iran into a Frankenstein monster. The US is the Victor Frankenstein of the planet, whoever is in power. We destroy everything we touch.
In 1998 Amartya Sen won the Nobel prize for economics, partly for showing that elected governments take better care of their people, especially in times of crisis, than unelected governments. I felt it was this thinking that led to the slow response by the Bush Administration to the Katrina crisis. Louisiana, at the time, was a blue state, and New Orleans was particularly blue. It took a long time for Bush to realize that even though they didn't vote for him, their lives still mattered.
The Republican strategy, starting with Newt and followed by Rove and McConnell, is to get 51% of the vote, serve the interests of the people who elect them, and nobody else even if the rest of us are American citizens.
This leaves blue states in a "taxation without representation" situation. Blue and purple states pay taxes that are redistributed to red states.
And the gap is getting wider as more people move to the economic power centers in blue states, Republicans represent less than 51% of the U.S. population.
The solution is for the U.S. to abandon the winner-take-all model and move to proportional representation.
Hoping for Republicans to become moral won't work. Power is too great an aphrodisiac. When a leading evangelical (Pat Robertson), says money is more important than murder, morality is no longer on the table. Better to have robust checks and balances and proportional representation to ensure all Americans are represented in government.
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What way? Since 1981 it has done what it's doing now. Tax cuts for the people who need it least.
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@David Henry
How DARE the government not get every single penny it wants!!!
The Republican Party is about getting results for America, something that Democrats long ago abandoned in their joy at simply hearing themselves talk (or at reading what they write).
Those things include a strong economy, low unemployment and rising wages; a re-booting of our industrial middle class; foreign affairs that are more attentive to our own legitimate interests and that address cans that have been kicked interminably by others, such as on North Korea, Iran and China; a more secure and controlled southern border; a walking-back of the excessive political correctness that had been developing in our country for a long time and has a strangling effect on all our human interactions; and a government that works again, after years of frozen politics.
The Republican Party has plenty of principled members who are not willing to simply abandon a president who, despite his decidedly unappetizing behavioral traits and mouth, is the single most important driving force to securing all the things Republicans want for America.
Both parties want things for America, but one appears to be satisfied with merely talking and writing about them, while the other is VERY busy GETTING what they want. Frankly, I suggest that our principled Republicans are a lot more effective for America than Kristof’s principled Democrats. As a matter of fact, looking at results since early 2011, the smart move could be to cashier every one of those principled Democrats for flagrant non-performance.
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"During the height of the 2008-9 recession, not a single Republican House member voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to stimulate the economy."
The great economy Americans are enjoying now in 2018 could have come about in 2011, except for the Republicans unprincipled refusal in order to have a bad economy going into the 2012 election, which they lost anyway.
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@Richard Luettgen
Right now I am shaking in my boots for doing so, but I actually agree with a great deal of what you say.
The strong economy benefits all. The reality is it is at least partially due to Obama's steady policies that led us out of a potential depression, but no question, some of Trump's policies have invigorated it.
Foreign Policy. Push and pull, Trump is pushing American's interests more. Nafta appears to be a win for him, I agree with controlling the borders, but not with separating families.
Political Correctness. I agree sometimes this country has gotten bogged down trying for perfection, never insulting anyone, but guess what? Relaxing the rigidity does not require constant intentional insulting of others over and over.
We need to find a middle, only possible if the two sides come together, but with Christian Conservatives more or less controlling the Republicans, they are in a zero sum game plan. Everything has to be won at all cost.
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@DB Or Obama could have forgotten cash for clunkers, subsidies for his favored states, shovel ready projects, protecting his favored unions, etc. And did what this president is doing, putting citizen's interests first, making us more competitive and eliminating foolish regulations. Obama insisted 2% was the best we could achieve, this president does not cap our capabilities like that.
The GOP certainly deserves a proper shellacking. But, if it happens, I hope the Democratic victors are able put their constituents first for a change. Its been a generation at least since that has happened.
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@caveman007
Won't happen. The elected Dems will beholden to the Aniftas, BLM, 'progressives', etc. First order of business is *revenge* and making sure they can never lose again. Also opening the borders up wide so we have the great 'cheap' labor that helps companies but doesn't help you.
Only thing I can hope for is that they run the car so far off the cliff that the elections of 2020 will elect anyone who can toss them out.
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The Republican Party under Trump, with its control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, epitomizes the old adage, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Republican leaders have behaved disgracefully under the tutelage of Trump.
The only other time in the past six decades that Republicans had such absolute power was in 2003-2007, during which time President George W. Bush invaded Iraq with the help of a supine Congress and whose presidency then ended with the start of the Great Recession. Enough said. It’s time to end the absolute power of the current GOP ASAP before history repeats itself in an even more disastrous fashion.
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Absolute power corrupts absolutely? So does that mean that absolute powerlessness engenders absolute virtue?
@Jack Nargundkar, it took Obama 8 years to restore the economy, and to restore America’s good name abroad. Yet the republicans remain ungrateful and Trump thinks he’s the one who fixed the ruins of the economy that’s George W Bush left behind, like overnight. Head slap
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@scottthomas All basketball players are tall. So does that mean that all non-basketball players are short?
The Republican Party has generally dragged the political discourse so far to the right that the type of politician you are looking for Mr. Kristoff can be found aplenty in the Democratic Party. Indeed, the best case scenario is for the GOP to collapse and then the Democratic Party to stay exactly where they are on the center-right while a proper center-left party fills the void.
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@Scott You dream sir!
All the republican dreams [for years in their dreams ] social , economic , religious , libertarian ,states rights ,enviermental regulations. bank and stock market regulation and the federal courts [both district and appellate ] and most important the SUPREME COURT have been achieved by trump in his first year and half.
Nick please explain why his base would be unhappy. The fact that his base may not agree with everything he has done they are over joyed that he gave each group the one thing they always dreamed of and they will forgive for all the other things. Thanks to the electoral college his base now controls presidential elections and they control the states to prevent const. amendments.
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@gerry I'm still waiting to get to the bottom of what Justice Kennedy was offered to retire when he did. His son's employment with Deutsche Bank and loans to Trump was mentioned but quickly disappeared.
What's the inside story NYT?
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The GOP, perhaps seeing a demographic tsunami in the distance, has become the Party of No, ignoring every flashing alarm in the future, from the national debt to under-funded Social Security to the decline of health insurance to climate change.
It is easier to be against something than for it, especially when your base skews toward the less educated, male, white and older. On the other hand, women, younger, more educated and more diverse voters tend to be more forward looking and more concerned about climate change than coal mining.
But the big advantage that has powered Republicans into majorities at the state and Federal level is voting participation. The Silent Generation, the only age group that votes decisively Republican, out-voted future oriented and Democratic voting Millennials by 5 to 1 in the last mid-terms.
So GOP politicians abandon all traditional principles, becoming cousins of the Southern Segregationists, who opposed Social Security altogether until FDR agreed to exclude farm laborers, who were predominately black in the 1930s South.
Gerrymandering by Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, voter suppression by Kansas and elsewhere, are echoes of Southern voting suppression, still alive thanks to the Roberts Court.
This country has regressed into isolationism, to the disgust of the world, who laughed AT Trump in the UN.
The November election will tell us much about whether we are willing to accept this state of affairs, especially the Big One, Climate Change.
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Democrats ran agriculture and politics in the South from the early 1800s through to the 1970s and ran key committees of both houses of Congress which instituted all the evils you rant about.
As someone who grew up Republican in one of the nation's most liberal states, it makes me sad and embarrassed to see what the Republican Party has become nationally and locally. I feel it has become the party of Trump rather than the Republican party. I've been disgusted by much of what President Trump has said and done, but I haven't been surprised. But what has profoundly surprised me is how little Republicans have pushed back and have largely supported Trump. Unless things change, I don't feel I can support, or vote, for the political party I was raised in.
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@Theresa
With all due respect.....you really shouldn’t be surprised whatsoever. Trump didn’t invent birtherism. He just knew the Republican customer better than the current GOP. What the GOP did to Barack Obama was abhorrent. The institutionalized racism, hypocrisy, obstruction, greed and craven lust for power put the world’s economy at risk.
McConnell already has his 2019 and 2020 game plan: blame the Democrats and entitlements on the deficit, cut entitlements and suppress the vote.
Trump’s victory has emboldened the GOP. The party always knew dishonesty, fear and anger win elections (Carl Rove and Swiftboating the sailboarding John Kerry). Trump has shown them that their base is even more resentful, racist and fearful than they realized and keeping those things stoked is all they need to do. They don’t even need to fake it anymore.
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On proposition 10 in California: For a true conservative, this proposal makes sense with a yes vote because municipalities should be free to enact rent control ordinances. Get it? FREE to choose locally? The housing supply will take care of itself through market forces. Vouchers are Big Brotherism again. This is a center right Democrat.
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@Frank Jay thank you for this comment. I live in CA and am voting for Prop 10. All Prop 10 does is reverse an industry-inspired law passed in 1994 that blocked local control over segments of the rental market. The so-called "free market" has reigned for 20 years and housing is less affordable than ever. Time to try something new. The real estate industry and corporate property companies are spending $60 million on deceptive TV ads to kill Prop 10; when one side of a debate spends that much money to disseminate untruths, it's obvious your vote should go to the other side.
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When Republicans stop pushing supply-side economics, protect the environment, protect voting rights and put the needs of people over the needs of Koch Brothers then they will be welcome to participate. As long as they are promoting oligarchy, not so much.
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@David Bible
Well said fellow Texan!
A healthy democracy requires at least two parties that respect the institutions of democracy and the rule of law. We have two parties in the US, but only one seems to adhere to these principles. The other seems only to care about winning at any cost, and whatever that cost is, the ends will justify the means.
The United States has always been a fragile experiment in democracy and I've always believed that its future existence is never a given. In my seventy-two years I've never seen us this close to the brink of a usurping of our system. If and when that happens, thank God that at seventy two I'll be dead before too long.
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@John Yes dems care only about power, their power. See their ninth circuit judges for a great example. And you might last another 30 or so years, not so short.
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@John
I am 70. I live in a healthy democracy where we are still exploring a more perfect union. We had an election a week ago Monday. We changed governments and on Monday evening the election was over and the old government is the loyal and constructive opposition.
I weep for you, I weep for my wife, I weep for my children and I weep for all of my American family and friends who love their country more than they love themselves.
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A healthy democracy requires more than two parties. In the US, we have one party, the party of the rich, which squabbles amongst itself but in the in the end rewards itself while the rest of us pay the bills.
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Contrary to the column’s subtitle, Republicans haven’t lost their way. They’ve found it. The things they stand for in their deepest souls are being realized, not with regret, but with glee.
If they cared one whit for the retired, the old, the sick, minorities, women, liberals or gays they wouldn’t rub lick their lips at the prospect of giving billions of tax gifts to billionaires, running up a huge deficit and then using that as an excuse to cut Medicare and Social Security.
They wouldn’t find torturous and lame excuses to install Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court just to let the bad taste of the current administration linger on the tongue for decades to come, and to remind women where they stand in the current world order.
Even “principled” Republicans went along in the end with virtually all of the president’s wishes. If not for a final thumb’s-down from McCain we might be wondering where the uninsured would be getting medical care.
The very sight of Mitch McConnell produces a visceral reaction. He’s not trying to moderate an insane president’s goofy edicts. He’s enabling him, making his twisted will the law of the land.
I agree, this one and only time, with George Will. Republicans have to be turned out in droves. Sadly we’re not doing the Game of Thrones walk of shame any more, so all we can do is turn their filthy rich hides out, and elect people who won’t sell out to a narcissistic moron.
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@gemli "they haven't lost their way. They have found it." best and truest line ever.
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@gemli
I am 70 and today it struck me that Francisco Franco was a hero to the right until the presidency of George HW Bush. We are wasting our breathe calling them Fascists it is a label they wear as a badge of honour.
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The 'principles' of today's Republican Party look like this:
- Stack the Supreme Court with conservatives by any means. It matters not if a president is denied his Constitutional right to appoint a judge, or if a man with a dubious past and an explosive temperament is given a lifetime seat.
- You're here to do the gun lobby's bidding. The bloodshed of innocents in school, at church, while working, you name it, is a small price to pay.
- Our one planet will have to be sacrificed for business as usual. Sure, we will sacrifice the integrity of science. Oh, and, all those harmed by increasingly destructive weather and climate patterns. But, no, we can't afford any regulations or responsibilities.
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@NM, Excellent comment, thanks.
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''America needs a robust center-right party to hold progressives like me accountable...'' - Ummmm, NO.
What America needs is representation of the people, by the people, and for the people. IF that were to be true, then there would be massive (absolutely massive bordering on all levels of government) Progressive majorities, since every single Progressive idea or policy is wildly popular. (even among republicans)
Having said that, I would settle for just straight up and down votes for everything and all confirmations. (really I would). That would eliminate secret holds and back room deals that only give political cover for representatives and senators to vote against the people they are supposedly to represent.
Furthermore, I would like to see mandatory voting for all Americans (preferably by paper ballot and by mail). If that were to happen, then again, I do not think republicans would garner more than a few votes here and there.
Either way, what America needs is a decisively Progressive majority government for at least a few terms ( a la FDR) to bring the country (and world) back to some sense of reality and to the mood of the voters. Furthermore, peace would like follow which can be considered a good thing as well.
It is not a matter of keeping today's people honest, but being honest to the principles of the founding fathers.
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@FunkyIrishman Implement them in your state, pay for them yourself, and if they work other states can or won't follow. Simple constitutional method, try using it.
More and more, I think the South won the civil war, and that is why we are a stupid third world country.
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@FunkyIrishman
I used to think that mandatory voting would make a difference, too, in voting out our current reactionary extremist leaders. However, take a look at Brazil, which has mandatory voting. The winner in recent preliminary voting was Jair Bolsonaro, a fascist even more extreme than the occupant of the White House, who is projected to win the run-off election next week.
It appears that mandatory voting alone is not the answer. We have been on this slippery slope of losing our democracy for decades now, and the takeover by oligarchs is now complete with the seating of Brett Kavanaugh. Elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which required true balance in media, was the conduit through which greedy powerbrokers have been able to poison the minds of millions of Americans. Why shut down the press when you can manipulate it instead? Look at how much time and effort the Russians have spent on it.
Unless and until we restore fairness in our media, and kick out Russian meddlers, we are fighting an uphill battle to regain democracy.
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There is absolutely no question that of the two major parties, the GOP is rotten to its core. It's so bad, starting over isn't good enough. It needs to completely be shut down, left only in the history books as a reminder for future generations of the damage money in politics inflicts on a society.
That doesn't mean the other party doesn't have its own issues or that those issues aren't related to corruption. With both parties feeding from the same trough, only a fool believes that the Democrats have come through unscathed by the rank corruption that is all around us.
Paul Manafort and Roger Stone came up with Richard Nixon and in the 40 years they've been lobbying, there isn't a politician or party that hasn't worked with them.
We need to get rid of the two-party hegemony. It is choking our politics, robbing us of our freedoms and killing our democracy.
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'Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking' https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW
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